The Sun Chariot
by christinaking
Summary: "In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance, my head is bloody, but unbowed." Invictus, by William Ernest Henley (Demily)
1. Chapter 1

_So...two nights ago, I couldn't sleep. I got up to finish Adrift and ended up starting this, without any plans that a new story was on my fingertips. Don't worry. The last chapter of Adrift is almost done (I adore that story and it won't be another Half the Sky where I get myself stuck)._

 _Read this now, or wait twenty-four hours or less before the last chapter of Adrift is posted._

 _But I had to get this out for my own sanity. The mind of a fanfiction writer is a fickle, impulsive, impatient thing._

 _Paget said in an interview recently that she might be making guest appearances on Criminal Minds next season, and this is where my slightly twisted, hopelessly romantic, angst-ridden imagination took me._

 _I'm giving first-person, present-tense a whirl, with alternating Emily and Derek points of view._

 _Hold onto your panties...and your kleenex. I hope you enjoy the ride. Thank you for all of your reviews and encouragement._

* * *

Of all the places I've lived in my life, my short time in Greece is, by far, my favorite. At thirteen, I became fascinated with Greek mythology; I fantasized myself a goddess of war, a goddess of wisdom, a goddess of healing and faith and hope. I remember I traveled with my father one day to the Sanctuary of Poseidon and saw myself as a different type of Athena, ripping the trident out of Poseidon's hand instead of being stopped, holding onto that trident on the cliffs at the edge of the sea and taking control of my own destiny. I saw myself in flowing robes; I was beautiful and kind and strong and unstoppable.

Then I grew up and I left my fantasy world behind. I was a mere mortal, at best a mortal on the fringes of all those gods and goddesses.

And then I was just human, just Emily, with all my flaws and monumental mistakes and painful regrets and a life I've now lived for forty-four years that I still can't even begin to make sense of, especially recently.

Why I'm thinking about Greek mythology at a time like this is not lost on me. I'm seeing myself in this moment as Clymene, the mortal mother of Phaethon, who is the son of Helios, the Sun God. Helios had the vitally important task of carrying the sun in his chariot lead by fiery horses day after day; he was responsible for the sun rising and setting, which he did flawlessly. He tamed and controlled those wild, blazing horses and carried the weight of the sun on his shoulders and made sure the days started and ended like they should.

Phaethon, after years of living with his mother, one day sets off to meet Helios, and asks for the honor of trying to drive the chariot. The story doesn't end well after that: The fiery horses are too much for young Phaethon to handle, he blazes a path in the sky and creates the breathtaking beauty of the Milky Way, before crashing and causing devastation and deserts and barrenness to a landscape that was once lush. He faces the wrath of Zeus.

I can see the metaphorical Helios and Phaethon in my own life. And I am just Clymene, left behind and forgotten. That's why I'm thinking of the start of this particular myth, even though I can find no parallels in its end. Phaethon will not be met with an abrupt, catastrophic end this time; I know, in my story, Phaethon, with time, will learn to drive that chariot with Helios.

I stare out the plane window and catch a glimpse of the eastern seaboard for the first time in a year and a half, then blink back tears before turning to look at the two people with me on the jet.

I hope I get the time to write my own altered ending for Clymene, instead of living the life of the mythological Clymene, who lost Phaethon, and then, as no more than a mortal, the importance of her part in the story ends and she fades into oblivion.

* * *

Sometimes I still dream about Emily. Not about the sex itself, because, quite frankly, that wasn't one of my best performances, not by a long shot. Garcia was out with some friends she'd met in London, and had called to say that she was just going to stay the night at the flat of one of those friends because she wanted to enjoy herself. Emily and I stayed in her flat and we both drank more than our fair share of alcohol. We had talked for a long time before I had brazenly thrown caution to the wind, leaned over and kissed her.

By the time we'd gotten to the actual intercourse part of the evening, the room was spinning slightly for me, and I was so wound up, so shocked that something I had been curious about and wanted for so long was actually happening, that I embarrassed myself in about two minutes flat, and even that might be an optimistic exaggeration on my part. It was probably less than two minutes. And right after, Emily had bolted from her bed, ran to her bathroom, and thrown up all the alcohol she'd consumed. I'm thankful I don't dream about that portion of the evening.

What I dream about are the moments before and the moments after - how her eyes shined with desire after I kissed her for the first time, how her lips felt, how she tasted like whiskey, but beneath that was an essence that I could only describe as purely and uniquely her. I dream about how her body looked naked and how her skin felt pressed against mine.

After she'd bolted from that bed to throw up, I'd followed her, concerned. I dream about the look on her face when she stood from where she was kneeling on the bathroom floor, embarrassed; about how she'd shyly and clumsily brushed her teeth, and then watched me with slightly unfocused, but tender eyes as I warmed the water in the sink, wet a washcloth and gently wiped her mouth. How she'd blinked back tears when I thoroughly rinsed the washcloth again and then even more gently wiped up the stickiness between her legs.

I dream about how she'd touched my face before taking my hand and leading me back to her bed, how she laid down with her head against my chest and her arm wrapped around me. I dream about how her hair felt silky and soft under my fingers. I dream about the scent of her shampoo.

More often than not, I am jolted awake from these dreams in the middle of the night, my heart pounding. Sometimes, they are so vivid that I think the head resting on my chest is Emily, and then sleep is totally ripped from me, and I realize, embarrassed and ashamed, that it's actually Savannah in my arms.

I am thankful that I don't seem to talk in my sleep. I am thankful for my skin tone that hides the redness I can feel in my cheeks when Savannah wakes up and asks me if I'm okay.

I am thankful that I never seem to have more than one dream like that a night, and that I don't dream at all most nights, because I imagine I'd start feeling a little schizophrenic if I did. I haven't had a dream about Emily in just under a month, which is a hopeful sign that maybe they've finally stopped all together.

But those dreams are all I'm thinking about as I sit in my office, staring at my laptop screen at an email that had arrived from Emily minutes before.

 _Derek,_

 _I'm back in DC area for an indeterminate amount of time. I really need to talk to you, and I'm hoping we can meet for coffee soon, this week, if possible. Please let me know._

 _Love,_

 _Emily_

That's it. It's the first communication we've had with each other since an inexplicably disjointed and somewhat uncomfortable conversation in a bar a year and half before, after she'd come to help JJ, but before the rest of the team showed up that night. She couldn't really meet my eyes when we talked then, and seemed to almost sag in relief when Reid and Rossi walked in the doors of the bar and our private, stilted dialogue ended.

I write her back that I could meet tomorrow morning, and she responds almost immediately with a time and a location.

I leave my office to seek out information from two people who might have it. JJ is sitting with one hand on her slightly swollen stomach in Penelope's lair when I find them, and I enter and shut to the door.

"Did you know Emily's back in town?" I ask.

Garcia's eyes open wide and then she smiles brightly. "She is?"

Clearly this is news to Garcia, but JJ's eyes betray her before she catches herself. I'm not sure what I saw flash in her eyes before her face became impassive - sadness? fear? But she knows, and I can tell by looking at her that she isn't going to say a word in front of Penelope. So I let her off the hook for the time being when she shakes her head like she didn't know Emily was back.

Garcia turns to grab her phone and call Emily, but there's no answer. She leaves an excited, cheerful message asking Emily to call her back.

But I know Emily enough to know that she would realize I would seek out more information, and I know she isn't going to be returning that phone call until she sees me. However cryptic and short her email may have been, Emily Prentiss is not that much of a mystery to me. She emailed me instead of calling or texting, where someone might have seen the text or heard me talking, because she wasn't looking for a reunion with the team, at least not yet. She wanted to talk to me first.

It suddenly dawns on me that meeting her for coffee may have to do with a job offer. It may be that Hotch called Emily, yet again, to see if she wanted to return to the BAU since Kate was now gone. It may be that she wants to see how I feel about that, given that one night in London and my current relationship with Savannah.

I honestly don't know what I'd say if she asked me about that. I could see it getting messy, and I could also see it being just fine, Emily and me going back to our easy friendship and working relationship. Having a partner like her again, something that I've greatly missed.

This story I'm making up in my head seems plausible, and later that evening, I'm able to get a moment alone with JJ to try and confirm it. She's just picking up her bag to leave work for the day when she spots me and glances at the floor before looking up and meeting my eyes.

"You knew she was back. Do you know why she wants to urgently meet me for coffee?" I ask.

JJ hesitates and nods. She steps towards me and puts a comforting hand on my arm. "Just go talk to her, Derek," she says softly.

JJ's face is giving nothing away, which I now know means she's trying to hide something. I could press, but she's not going to break down and tell me. And suddenly the story I've made up in my head about Emily potentially returning to the BAU doesn't make sense in this context - JJ would have no reason to be so cloak and dagger if it was only that.

I let JJ leave for the day without further questions, knowing they would only lead to frustration for me when she didn't answer. I leave the office shortly after that and head home to have dinner with Savannah before she leaves for the night shift at the hospital.

Looking at her face while I eat, I acknowledge that I love her and that I'm comfortable with her, with us living in this house together. Now that we've found an internal compromise with our jobs and are sharing the same living space even though we are often apart, we feel more connected.

Still, I don't tell her about meeting Emily for coffee. First of all, she only knows of Emily in the context of the BAU, that Emily used to work with the team. Secondly, there very well be nothing to tell and I decide to wait until I know more. Savannah knows nothing about that night in London, no one does.

I reconsider that thought as I put dishes in the dishwasher. Perhaps JJ does.

I kiss Savannah goodbye when she leaves for work. I'm thankful that I'll have the bed to myself tonight, because I know I will dream.

* * *

I don't sleep the night before I'm supposed to meet Derek for coffee. I stare around the bedroom in the house I'm renting in Bethesda, a bedroom that glows softly from the nightlight that's plugged into the wall, a room that is pleasantly decorated, in stark contrast to how I actually feel right now. My head is a jumble of data, of facts and realities, of hope and despair.

But mostly there is just fear, fear about the future and fear about seeing Derek tomorrow.

Six weeks ago I thought I had a cold, but the symptoms just persisted, and I was feeling more run down than I'd ever felt in my life. I decided it was because I was stretching myself way too thin. I cut back on my work with Clyde's blessing, stopped bringing paperwork home and burning the midnight oil. I started eating more regularly and getting a solid eight hours of sleep a night. I tricked myself into thinking that I was starting to feel better, and then eight hours of sleep wasn't enough anymore, and my appetite waned. Though I forced myself to eat, I dropped seven pounds in a matter of days. I dragged myself out of bed every morning, and finally conceded that I needed to see a doctor.

I was expecting results like anemia, even possibly mono. I was thinking perhaps a bacterial infection and some antibiotics and a speedy path to recovery. But as the testing went on, and my doctor looked more and more concerned, dread filled me and I knew something terrible was looming. The word _cancer_ rattled around in my head, but I was not expecting Stage IV Hodgkin Lymphoma.

Nine days later, the diagnosis still shocks me. And every time I say the diagnosis, either in my head or out loud, I see it like a huge, old-fashioned marquee with blinking lights - STAGE FOUR HODGKIN LYMPHOMA! - and a flashing, blood-red arrow pointing right at me.

The moment I received my diagnosis, I knew I needed to get back to DC. It was my mother who selected the doctor at Johns Hopkins, my mother who found me the house in Bethesda when I said I didn't want to live all the way in Baltimore, my mother who had the house rapidly furnished and decorated and ready for us when we arrived from London two days before.

It was Clyde who let us use the Interpol jet, who swiftly and delicately handled all of our belongings and loaded them on the plane. It was Clyde who put his hand against my cheek and told me I had the strength and courage of ten human beings and I needed to hold onto that.

The optimist I try to find inside me keeps chanting, "Sixty-five percent survival rate," but the pessimist in me talks back, "That's only for five years." The optimist says many people now survive much, much longer than that, a lucky few go on to live a normal, full life. The pessimist reminds me that there's still a thirty-five percent chance I'm going to die.

It's an all out war with my psyche every night, and I never know who is going to win. If the battle ends with the optimist in me having the final word, I usually manage a solid night's sleep; if my inner pessimist is the last thing I hear in my head, I wake up frequently, all night long, frightened and crying. And tonight, I know no matter who wins, sleep is going to be almost impossible to find, even though I'm sick and exhausted.

I wrap my arms more firmly around the soundly sleeping body next to me in the bed, press a kiss to the warm, soft skin of his forehead, comforted slightly by how completely relaxed he is in sleep. I sigh and try not to cry.

I don't know what I'll tell Derek tomorrow. Every time I try to justify my choices and my actions, I come up with a dead end. I have no excuses, except fear and a secret that just grew larger as time went on, that got so big that my shame at not saying anything for so long made that secret seem insurmountable and impossible to face.

JJ was sad and comforting yesterday when I talked to her; she was also understandably shocked and more than just a little angry with me, even though she tried to hide it. I don't blame her. I'm angry with myself and have been, off and on, for years, when I let myself think about it too much. I imagine that my anger at myself is nothing compared to what Derek's anger is going to be like.

Do I jump in first with the fact that I have cancer and I'll be starting chemotherapy next week?

Or do I first tell him that nearly three years before, after too many shots of whiskey for both of us, I made a calculation error trying to do drunken mental math, made the decision to have unprotected sex for only the second time in my life, and I nodded at him that it was fine that neither one of us had a condom. He probably thought I was on some form of birth control when in reality I was jumping at an opportunity I never thought I'd have, a last-chance dream that could finally be realized on his second-to-last night in London, when I was far away from the BAU and rules. I was playing a risky game of roulette, and just like when I was fifteen, it ended the same way.

Do I first tell him that there's a chance I'm going to die, or do I first tell him that the warm, adorable body in bed next to me, the little person I can't bear to be apart from at night these days, is his son that I never told him about?

Do I try to explain to him how at first I was shocked, and then I was scared? That I lifted my phone to call him nearly every day for nine months, but I didn't know what to say because I knew he would _not_ try to figure out how to make a joint custody agreement work when we lived on different continents, and he would _not_ implore me to come home; he would have walked away from his job and his life and moved to London, and I didn't want my own carelessness to change his future like that.

Do I tell him that I silently cried for him when I was in labor, and that Clyde Easter, of all people, was there, stoically letting me squeeze the life out of his hand?

Should I tell him that after I brought the baby home, I couldn't face what I'd already made him miss, without giving him a choice in the matter, that I stopped attempting to call and instead made a daily diary for him, complete with my thoughts and pictures and videos of his son? That I have it all right here on a flash drive for him to read and look through, and that I almost never missed a day of writing to him?

Do I tell him that the first time our son smiled at me, he looked so much like his father that it took my breath away and momentarily bolstered me with the courage that had eluded me for months? That I had actually picked up the phone that day and called his apartment, because it was a Saturday morning and I was hoping his was home, not wanting to call his cell in case he was at work; that with a thudding heart I let the phone ring through and then all courage was sapped from me when the groggy voice of a woman answered his phone? And that as the months wore on and I casually heard about Savannah when I spoke with members of the team, I realized telling him and ruining what he was building for himself might be selfish?

Or that I was just a coward and selfish myself.

Do I tell him that I have a couple of friends in London, a nanny who loves our son dearly and my mother, all of whom would gladly take our son should I die, but that I only can imagine him being with his father, if it comes to that? I don't have to ask him if he would be willing; I have a suspicion that once this secret's out of the bag, his son will become his entire focus.

Do I tell him first that our son's middle name is my father's, but his first name is Derek's father's? Because it wasn't that I wanted to push him out of my life or his son's life, it was just that in my feeble existence of bad relationships and elusive love, I didn't have any clue how to let him in and was too afraid to try.

I sigh deeply again and feel the tears as they silently burn a path down my cheeks. I should have told him right away, and, not for the first time, do I desperately wish to go back to that day I'll never forget - August 14, 2012 - when I had a positive pregnancy test in one hand and my phone with his number up on the screen in the other. I wish with everything in me that I had just forced myself to press "Call."

Tomorrow, I am going to completely rock Derek Morgan's world. I selfishly hope that once his anger subsides a bit, he can still find something good to think about me. I don't dare hope for forgiveness, but I hope he doesn't hate me for the rest of my life, however long that is.

The little body in front of me shifts and snuggles more deeply against my chest. I try to match my breathing to his, to close my eyes, but I can't stop looking at his face.

 _It's because you know your time to take him in and know him might be running out,_ the pessimist in my head says.

 _Fuck you!_ my inner optimist shouts back.

I know no matter what tomorrow or the months ahead bring, no matter how terrible it all is, or how badly I feel or what this disease and its treatment might do to my body, for the little boy in my arms, I can never, ever give in or stop fighting.


	2. Chapter 2

_I'm a schmuck. You get this before the last chapter of Adrift and I make a solemn vow to all of my readers that I will never, ever again post a new story before the last one is finished. The last chapter of Adrift *is* almost done, but there's something missing there and I'm not going to post until I feel it's just right._

* * *

She's thinner. That's the first thing I notice as I approach the cafe where Emily stands waiting for me, a cup of coffee in each hand. Much too thin, so thin that she looks like she must be cold even though it's July in DC and already hot and humid outside at nine o'clock in the morning. I've seen her weight fluctuate before; a few pounds is significant on her frame. Weight loss usually signals stress for her - the thinnest she'd ever been was during those weeks leading up to the showdown with Doyle.

She's thinner than that now. Maybe Interpol was just too much, too stressful, and that's why she's back.

She has large, dark sunglasses covering her eyes and looks slightly more pale than I remember. She doesn't take off her sunglasses as I approach, but she does smile. Still, it doesn't cover her face like I expected it to, like mine is of its own accord, just seeing her standing there. Her smile barely stretches her lips and it's in that moment that I realize that there is something very, very wrong. That this probably isn't about a job at all.

"Hi," I manage to say in a cheerful voice I don't quite feel when I'm standing in front of her, trying to disguise my concern.

"Hi," she says quietly as she hands me one of the cups of coffee. I take it with one hand and wrap my other arm around her. She returns to the hug and I feel a little better, until I feel the sharpness of her shoulder blades through the thin cotton of her t-shirt.

The two of us don't typically beat around the bush with each other, at least we didn't used to, back in the first several years of our partnership. So I don't try now. I glance around and find an empty outdoor table that's away from other people. I walk. I sit. She follows.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

I am stunned and my heart breaks for the woman before me who used to have such a prominent role in my life, as I watch two tears slowly creep from beneath her sunglasses and trail down her cheeks.

" _What's wrong?"_ I quietly implore again.

She gulps and wipes her cheeks. Her mouth opens and closes as she debates and chooses her words. More tears follow. "Shit," she finally says. "I didn't want to cry."

The sunglasses are off, pushed up on her head and I gasp at the circles under her eyes as she swipes angrily at the tears on her face.

"You're sick," I utter thickly, knowing suddenly, dread settling like a heavy blanket over me.

She nods. "Cancer. I start treatments at Johns Hopkins next week. But that's not why I wanted to see you. Derek, I...we…"

She trails off and wipes more tears off her face. The word "cancer" drives a virtual knife in my heart. I reach over and put my hand on top of hers, rubbing my thumb gently over the paper thin skin I find there. I'm not sure where she's going with this conversation, but this woman was - is? - a very good friend, more than a friend if I'm honest with myself, and important to me, even in her absence the past few years. I want to comfort her. I'm scared to death for her.

She smiles at my hand on hers and places her free hand on top of mine, then stares at the connection and sadly shakes her head. "Derek, we have a son," she finally manages to whisper.

I am stunned for a second, not really absorbing the words fully, and then I am nothing. I feel like there's a giant vacuum pulling at my back, first sucking in my stomach, my lungs and heart quickly following. I am there and I am not. She seems very far away, like I am floating weightlessly down a miles-long hallway and she's at the other end, barely visible, barely audible, entirely unrecognizable.

I realize I'm not breathing when I hear myself take in a powerful, shuddering breath, and then I'm able to focus on her again. I pull my hand away from between hers, unable to touch her in that moment, and do the math in my head. If we have a son, he'd be a little over two years old now.

I realize she's crying again, and now I really don't care, because already the anger is surging in me. I have a son I know nothing about. I have a son who doesn't know me at all, because she never told me about him.

She's talking again. She's talking quickly now and I try to hear the truth while brushing aside her excuses, because there is absolutely nothing she could say to me in this moment that would justify her actions. Nothing. And she knows it.

But her eyes are still her eyes, even with the gray circles under them; her face is still her face, even with her cheekbones more prominent because of her weight loss. I can't make sense of my world, for the first time in what feels like forever. And now she is saying something about Stage IV Lymphoma and I'm fully listening again.

She wants me to get to know our son because her own mortality has been thrown down in front of her, and she doesn't know how this is going to end, how or if she is going to end. She wipes her face with a napkin.

"I'm sorry, Derek," she whispers. "So very sorry."

"Where is he?" I ask, thinking he might still be in London.

"At the park a block away, with his nanny, Claudia."

"What's his name?" I ask.

And she looks up and meets my eyes. "Charles...Charlie," she whispers.

At that word, at my father's name falling from her lips, I do the only thing I can do: I cry and try to remind myself to breathe. My emotions are at odds and I'm not sure which one is going to come out on top.

I'm so angry that I could shake her and scream at her; I want to call her every foul name I can think of.

I'm so heartbroken that I could crumble in a ball on the ground and sob, not caring that I'm in public.

I'm so disgusted and disappointed that I can barely look at her.

I'm so scared she might die.

I want to see my son.

That finally wins out. I stand angrily and wipe my eyes with the back of my arm. "Let's go," I say firmly.

She stands and points in the direction of the park, and I walk quickly, not caring that she's sick and my fast pace might be difficult for her. She doesn't complain. I toss my coffee roughly into the first garbage can I see and pull out my phone, call Hotch, tell him I'm sick.

"You sound terrible," Hotch says.

And I do. Even to my own ears, my voice sounds hollow and distant, like I'm not quite living in that moment, and I'm not, because I just can't believe it. Of all the things Emily never told me about herself that I had painstakingly forgiven, that she would keep this from me after all of that has rocked me to my core.

With each step I feel my anger rising, keeping pace with my anticipation. I can see the park ahead and feel Emily put a tentative hand on my arm. She's out of breath and winded from the very short walk, and I slow down.

"I know you're angry and hurt," she puffs out. "I understand. You deserve to feel that way. But none of this is Charlie's fault. Let's not scare him, okay? Let me make the introductions. I told him about you this morning. He's very verbal. I think he understands a little. He knows he's going to meet you today. He's comfortable with new people."

The angry beast inside me roars and I can't control it. It's my turn to reach out and grab her arm. I spin her so she's facing me. "I shouldn't fucking be _new people_ , Emily." All the foul words I'm thinking of are right on the tip of my tongue, but I see her wince and I release my hold on her arm. I soothe the skin there because that is who I am. I want to call her selfish and awful and a bitch - me, Derek Morgan, who has never uttered that word aloud to a woman. I don't like what this is doing to me and I can't hold onto that angry beast for long before I let it go for the time being.

The Emily Prentiss I know is neither selfish nor a bitch, but I'm not sure I know her anymore; the woman I thought she was would not have kept this from me. Maybe I never really knew her at all. Still, she is upset and sick and I can't be mean, just can't.

I take a few deep breaths to calm myself. I know she's right, she needs to do the initial introductions, and I need to calm the fuck down so I don't scare my son. My _son_. I can't give her the courtesy of an "okay," but I manage to mutter a "fine" through my clenched teeth.

She nods and walks at a much slower pace towards the playground, and I walk beside her, trying to loosen the tension in my body.

A toddler sees her. He smiles and cries out, "Mummy!" And then he is running on little legs towards her.

His British accent shouldn't surprise me, but it does. His skin is a couple shades lighter than mine. His hair is wavy rather than curly. He is a stunningly beautiful mixture of the best of both of us - he is her eyebrows and my eyes; he is her forehead and my nose; he is her eyelashes and my ears.

I fall instantly in love with him.

I watch her bend down on one knee and scoop Charlie into her arms, kissing his cheek softly. I am insanely jealous of all the kisses she's been able to give him that I haven't. The good guy in me that keeps rising to the surface despite my residual anger is devastated that her kisses for our son might be numbered.

I see a young woman with blond hair and freckles hanging slightly back, her face unsure and worried. Claudia, I presume.

Emily picks up Charlie and walks towards a bench, and I follow closely behind. He's looking at me over Emily's shoulder, curious. I sit down next to them.

She gathers Charlie's hands in her own and rests her forehead against his. "Charlie," she says quietly and simply, "This is your daddy."

I don't know if he understands the enormity of that word; I'm not even sure I understand the enormity of that word. I don't know if he's asked about his daddy before, or if he's old enough to even express questions about that yet. I know nothing about him, except that his eyes are locked on mine and it's like looking at my reflection in the mirror.

He reaches a hand out and waves at me.

I smile.

He grins and says with his lilting accent, "You are big!"

And I laugh. I find myself again, let the anger and hurt go for the moment, and become singularly focused on this little boy who I don't want to be frightened of me.

I reach forward and take his small hand gently in mine and shake it. "Not too big," I whisper and wink at him. "It's nice to meet you, Charlie."

He stares at me and smiles again and I reach both arms towards him. "Can I hold you?"

He looks at Emily and she gives him a nod and a reassuring smile. He looks back at me and nods and leans towards me and I am holding my son on my lap, in my arms. I know in that moment that the world as I know it is completely over, even if I don't know what my future looks like. In that moment, there is me and there is him. Everything else is secondary.

I see Emily out of the corner of my eye, her head turned away from us, her frightfully bony shoulders shaking as she tries to cry quietly.

I can't give her much in that moment; my emotions are all over the map when it comes to her. It's going to take me a long time to sort out how I feel about Emily Prentiss. She has taken everything I knew about my path in life from me, spun it on its axis, and handed me back something new, something scary and uncertain, but unbelievable and beautiful and better, in the span of thirty minutes.

There's a toddler in my lap, my son, smiling at me, and whatever the future holds, I don't want him to sense tension between me and his mother. Her cancer brought her here. Her cancer allowed me to finally know about him. Because of that, there's a part of me that's glad she's sick, and a part of me that hates myself for that thought.

I desperately don't want her to die, no matter how angry I am.

I keep one arm around Charlie and smile at him and start asking about what he likes to do at the park. With my other hand I reach out and place it on top of Emily's for a moment. She doesn't turn to look at me. Her shoulders shake harder.

* * *

When I first picked out my flat in London, I chose a three bedroom with the hope that the team would visit me. I wanted space for them, like two spare rooms would tie me to the idea of them in my life even if I'd chosen to leave.

Only Garcia and Derek ever visited, and only once, after I'd been in London for two months. Three weeks after they left, I discovered that I was going to have a need for those two extra bedrooms, a different kind of need than I'd ever considered for my life.

Armed with good news from every prenatal test known to man telling me that at the age of forty-two I was carrying a very healthy boy, towards the end of my second trimester, I started the hunt for a live-in nanny.

My proposed salary, along with the room and board, had people crawling out of the woodwork to interview. At first, I barely glanced at Claudia Wright's application and resume. She was barely twenty-one years old, and listed her mother and a teacher as her references. I was looking for someone older, someone more mature, someone with a history of positive references and experience. I wanted someone kind and warm and loving.

Using my profiling skills, I carefully selected and interviewed eight middle-aged women. Because I was not naive enough to believe that prejudice didn't exist, I was honest. I lost five of them somewhere between "single mother," "biracial baby" and "unexpected, last-minute trips that will take me out of town sometimes." They didn't say anything, but I could tell by their faces that one or all of those ideas was not something they were entirely comfortable with or approving of. The three women I was left with wouldn't do; they were too strict, too cold, too stodgy. They might have ended up being fine nannies, but I couldn't imagine living with them, and I wanted something better than just "fine" for my son.

I went back to the drawing board and actually took the time to read through Claudia's application, thinking maybe my parameters were all wrong. I called and asked if she'd like to interview for the position, and she excitedly said yes.

And I found myself with a petite young woman who was maybe a hundred pounds soaking wet on a good day; a combination of sprite, fairy godmother and a modern-day Mary Poppins.

Her resume might have said she was twenty-one, but she looked no more than sixteen when I first met her; she doesn't look much older than that now. But she looked at me like she was wondering why the hell she needed to know that the baby I was carrying was biracial, like it couldn't possibly matter. And when I mentioned the last-minute trips for work, and that I could guarantee her two days off a week, but I couldn't guarantee that they'd fall on a weekend or even if they'd be two days in a row, she'd smiled and said, "I can read and visit with my family as easily on a Tuesday as I can on a Saturday."

At twenty-one, she'd helped raise six younger siblings. She was ready to move out of her family's home and was planning to give half her salary to her parents, so that they could have an easier time of it. She was bright and smart and kind and well-spoken. She was surprisingly strong, both mentally and physically, and mature and worldly-wise despite her seemingly sheltered life. She was a wealth of knowledge from breastfeeding to colic, and everything in between. She moved in four weeks before I was due and helped me set up the nursery.

When I went into labor two weeks before my due date, and two days after that I came home with Charlie, I arrived to a flat that was spotlessly clean with dinner on the stove, to a stack of freshly-laundered baby clothes and blankets, and to a young woman who seemed to instantly adore the baby in my arms as much as I did.

Her slim, freckled shoulders carried Charlie and me through those first difficult months. In Claudia, I found someone that started as a nanny, and soon felt like family. I found a friend, despite the fact that I was old enough to be her mother. We had the same tastes in books and television. I taught her Spanish and she taught me how to cook. I taught her to drive and she taught me, literally, how to take the time to stop and smell the roses.

When I told her I had cancer, she hugged me, and I felt perfectly comfortable crying on her shoulder.

When I told her I wanted to receive my treatment in the United States, she asked, "When do we leave?"

When I fessed up that Charlie was not merely the product of a one-night stand, but the son of a man that I had deep feelings for and a deep connection with at one time, a man I'd never told about his son, she put her hand on my knee and said, "I have faith that whomever helped make Charlie must be a wonderful, understanding person."

And now, as she sits next to me on the bench at the park and we both watch Derek Morgan sitting in the sand playing with Charlie, she keeps an arm around my shoulder and squeezes gently. She whispers, "This is going to work out. I can feel it."

I don't know what "work out" means. Does it mean she can tell Derek will take Charlie if I die? Or does it mean that I'm going to live and Derek and I are going to find a way in the middle of my own personal hell to co-exist and co-parent? Or does she mean something else entirely?

I turn my head to look at Claudia and she is smiling at the picture father and son make. I don't know what Derek is talking to Charlie about, but over the voices of other children on the playground, I can hear them both laugh frequently.

I've missed Derek's laugh.

We've been at this park for nearly two hours, and whenever Derek looks my way, I'm never quite sure what I'm going to get. Sometimes he looks clearly angry, and sometimes he looks sad and concerned. Sometimes he smiles, and sometimes he looks at me like he doesn't know me at all.

I watch as he stands in the sandbox and brushes himself off a bit. Between running and rolling around on the grass with Charlie and playing with wet sand, he's a bit of a mess, but he doesn't seem to mind at all. Charlie stands and takes his hand. Clearly, Derek has met with Charlie's seal of approval, almost instantly.

They walk towards us. "Mummy, I'm hungry," Charlie says.

I smile at the little boy who means the world to me. "We should get home and get some lunch, then."

I look at Derek and he's looking right back at me, with something that borders between confusion and worry, like I'm going to take Charlie away from him and that's going to be that. I push my sunglasses on the top of my head even though my eyes look awful. Derek and I communicate well with our expressions, and I don't want to block him out.

"I'm renting a house in Bethesda so I don't have to fight through DC traffic to get to Baltimore for my treatments," I say softly. That's partially true. It's the reason I didn't choose DC or Virginia. But I actually have no aversion to Baltimore and wouldn't have minded living there. I just didn't want to be so far away from Derek to make visiting whenever he wanted prohibitive. And when the day comes when he might take Charlie overnight, being thirty minutes away from my little boy sounds a hell of a lot better than an hour and a half.

Derek glances between me and Charlie, like he's not quite sure what to do.

"Would you like to see the house and have lunch with us?" I ask.

His relieved smile is brief, but there. And then it's gone. He nods. My car that my mother leased for me is actually parked right here at the park. I give Derek the address of the house so he can walk back to his car and then get on the road.

He still looks uncertain. He bends down and hugs Charlie like he might not ever see him again, and my heart breaks for what I've done to this man.

I take a risk. I put my hand on his shoulder and I feel him tense up before he relaxes under my touch. "Why don't we drive you back to your car and then you can follow us?" I ask, my lips quivering and my eyes once again filling with tears.

His voice cracks when he replies, "Sounds good."


	3. Chapter 3

The house Emily is renting is a cozy, bright single story on a large lot, across the street from a park. The first thing I notice is how it's impeccably decorated and furnished, but in a lot of ways looks like how I remember her flat in London looking, in terms of the type of furniture and the decor.

"How long have you been here?" I ask, my eyebrows raised.

"Three days. My mother did all of this before we got here. I asked her to keep things familiar, for Charlie's sake, and she did just that."

I look towards the kitchen where Claudia has taken Charlie to get lunch started and then look back at Emily. "Does your mother know that I'm his father?"

Emily sighs and sinks into the couch. "She does now. She didn't before. No one did. Clyde, I'm sure, guessed; you visited and then I was pregnant. He was the only one still in my life that knew you visited. He never asked me back then, but he wasn't at all surprised when I told him before we left London."

I look at her and find that at the moment my anger is gone, and there's just sadness. It doesn't mean I forgive her, not by a long shot, but I also no longer want to scream at her. I want to sit, but I also don't feel entirely comfortable in this house, at least not right now.

For the first time since I saw Emily at the cafe, I think about Savannah. I think about our home that just last night I was telling myself I loved. I have no idea what her reaction to any of this is going to be, and I feel guilty for not calling her on the drive here, but I know she's still sleeping after working the night shift. I don't want to wake her up with this news, and I don't want to tell her over the phone.

"JJ knows?" I venture.

Emily nods. "But she hasn't met Charlie yet, she's only seen a picture of him. I wanted you to meet him first."

 _Well, thanks for that, at least_ , I think sarcastically as I try not to roll my eyes.

"You can tell them all what you want, Derek. You can tell them what a terrible person I am, or that you hate me. They're your family."

"They're your family, too, Emily," I reply.

She shakes her head. "Not in a long time."

I know that's not true, not for the team. And I know by looking at her that she still feels deeply connected to them all, but I'm not going to argue with her because it has the potential of making her feel better, and I don't have that to consciously give right now. I acknowledge that I don't hate her. I would find it entirely impossible to hate the woman who made Charlie, even though I despise what she did.

Emily stares at me and then gestures to an arm chair. I force myself to sit, trying to figure out what to ask her next, now that I'm feeling a lot more calm than I was a few hours ago. "I didn't have to change my will and trust," she says quietly. "You've always been named as Charlie's father in there, Derek. You are listed as who I'd like as his guardian, and have been since before he was born."

I nod and blink rapidly several times, trying to keep myself in control. "Tell me about your treatment," I say softly.

She takes a deep breath and leans forward so her elbows are resting on her knees. For this, she isn't crying or emotional. She seems almost numb to it, and I'm the one who's trying not to fall apart. "I'm doing the Stanford Five protocol. That's twelve weeks of chemotherapy, with different drugs administered at different times, seven days apart. After that, two to six weeks of radiation, because I have a mass on my liver, which is not uncommon with Lymphoma. And then we see. There's a sixty-five percent chance that I'm going to beat this thing, and that's what I plan to do, but..."

I interrupt her, impulsively and fiercely. "No buts, Emily. It's what you will do."

She looks shocked at my words, almost surprised that I even care.

I get myself back on track. "Who's going to take you to your appointments?"

"Claudia will stay here with Charlie and I'll either take a cab or my mother will drive me."

I raise one eyebrow at her. A cab from Bethesda to Baltimore seems ridiculous. I know her mom helped her get this house ready and likely has some sort of a relationship with Charlie, but I can't imagine her being any sort of comfort to Emily while she's getting a bunch of drugs shoved into her system. My heart aches at the idea of her being there all alone, though.

"Does Charlie know you're sick?" I ask.

"He can only understand it in terms of a cold. I've told him I have a bad cold and will be going to a special doctor to help make it better. As time goes on, I'm going to have to prepare him for other things, like the fact that I'm going to lose all my hair. I ordered a children's book about it that I think will help. It should be here tomorrow."

Claudia calls out that lunch is ready.

I eat lunch at the kitchen table with them. I'm told the delicious food on my plate is leftover chicken parmesan that Claudia made for dinner the night before. It's a quiet lunch without much conversation. I am eating voraciously, realizing that I skipped breakfast, and I'm watching Charlie, who is smiling at me between bites while sitting in his booster seat. And then I notice how Emily is picking at her food, looking like every morsel on her fork is a battle, and she has to force it into her mouth.

Suddenly, I lose my appetite.

When Charlie is done with his lunch, Emily announces that it's nap time.

Charlie looks at her. "May Daddy read to me?"

I smile. I smile at him saying Daddy, which is something I'm never going to get tired of. And I smile because in the hours I've spent with him, his proper English with his accent is both shocking and amusing coming out of the mouth of a twenty-six month old.

Claudia walks me to Charlie's room and changes his diaper. "We were just starting to teach him to use the toilet, but then Emily got sick and it didn't seem like the right time. He understands though. Sometimes he asks to use the bathroom, and other times he's fine just continuing to play and use his diaper."

I stare at this young woman who seems to care deeply for both Charlie and Emily. "How long have you been his nanny?"  
She smiles at me. "Since the day he was born."

"How old are you?" I ask. I can't help myself. She looks like she should be talking about Junior Prom instead of taking care of a child.

She smiles again. She smiles a lot, I notice. "Twenty-three."

Claudia lifts Charlie and kisses his cheek. "You have a good nap, my little prince. Enjoy your reading time with Daddy."  
Charlie kisses her cheek and hugs her. "OK, Claudia."

I read to my son. He snuggles comfortably on my lap as I sit on the floor of his bedroom and I read to him about a duck on a bike and then I read Make Way for Ducklings. I look around his room and notice he has a veritable farm of stuffed animals on the edge of his bed, and many of them are ducks. Apparently, my kid's got a thing for ducks.  
"Did you know this is a real place?" I say as I point at the picture of the Boston Public Gardens. "It's not too terribly far from here."

He stares at me, but he's not quite catching on. He rubs his eyes and I finish the book. I get to tuck my son into his little bed that's low to the ground. I get to kiss his forehead and tell him to have sweet part of me that already loves him so completely, who can manage to block out the rest of the situation and what it means for my life as I know it, is in heaven.

As I'm leaving the bedroom, I realize that in four hours, I've learned quite a bit about Charlie, and about who Emily is as a parent, which is obviously pretty fucking spectacular given that fact that three days ago, Charlie was in London, and now he's here and obviously a very flexible, open and loving little boy.

When I return to the living room, Emily is passed out on the couch, snoring softly. I stare at her face and find myself holding my hands back. Picturing her without hair on her head is not difficult and won't be awful; picturing her without her eyelashes, the feature on her that I've always been most enamored with, has me blinking back tears.  
I'm mad at myself for even caring or considering that about her right now.

Another part of me wants to trace my fingers over those eyelashes and whisper in her ear, "Don't die."

And then a little anger kicks up inside me. I'm too fucking compassionate for my own good, sometimes.

"Please don't wake her. She usually naps when Charlie does these days. And I don't think she slept much last night," Claudia's voice whispers from behind me.

"How long will he nap?" I ask back in a whisper.

Claudia inclines her head towards the kitchen and I follow her in there. "Two hours, sometimes three. Probably three today after his long morning at the park."

I nod. "What time does he go to bed at night?"

"Around eight," she replies.

I have things to take care of. I need to talk to Hotch because already in my mind I'm realizing that right now, I can't be taking off at a moment's notice to fly to who knows where. And I need to talk to Savannah. And I just need some time away from Emily to sort through things for a little bit.

"Maybe I'll come back to read to him again at bedtime."

Claudia smiles. "He'd like that. And Emily would like that. It's why she chose Bethesda, so it wouldn't be too far for you to stop by."

I concede a little compassion towards Emily. She'd signed herself on to a cab ride to and from Baltimore for chemotherapy so she wasn't too far away from my house.

I consider the young woman before me whose hair is so blond it's almost white, who is pretty in a very innocent way, whose freckles add to her appearance rather than distract from it, whose green eyes are so green they almost seem like they must be fake. "How much do you know?" I find myself asking.

"More than Emily's told me," is her cryptic answer.

When I raise my eyebrows, she laughs lightly and shrugs her shoulders. "She's really not that difficult to figure out, is she?"

It's a loaded question that I both agree with and disagree with, and don't completely understand and it seems like the wrong time to try. Rather than getting into a philosophical conversation with a twenty-three year old about the woman asleep on the couch in the next room, I nod and smile slightly. I turn to leave the house for now.

"Mr. Morgan," Claudia calls out quietly.

I turn and she's reaching into Emily's purse. Then she is handing me a small, black flash drive. "She wanted to give this to you. She'd be disappointed if she knew you left before she could."

I take the smooth piece of plastic in my hand. "What is it?" I ask.

"Everything about Charlie," Claudia replies.

* * *

In my dream, the room is not spinning and I don't feel nauseous. In my dream, Derek is on top of me and I am only aware of how his body feels pressed against mine, only aware of the look in his eyes that I know I'm only allowed to see because of the whiskey he's consumed.

No man has ever looked at me like this before, like he just wants to breathe me in until the only two things left in the universe are me and him. Behind him, over his shoulders is a blazing sun.

A horse whinnies and I realize we're not alone in the room. Derek sighs and pulls away from me regretfully. But then he is standing there with flowing, beautiful robes. He helps me put them on and I look beyond him to see a chariot, and four horses that glow with fire.

Charlie is there. Derek, without concern of being burned, hoists the blazing sun into the back of the chariot. He picks up Charlie and settles him into the seat before climbing on board himself. He takes the reins. He looks at me. "Well, come on, Emily," he says with a smile.

I shake my head and realize I'm crying. "There's no room."

"Of course there is," he replies.

But there isn't. There's no space for me on the chariot. I fall to my knees and sob.

"We have important things to do," he says. "We'll come back for you."

Even as he says it, I know it's not true. The walls of my bedroom in my flat in London fall away and he snaps the reins and they are gone, gone.

I stare at the sunrise they create as the chariot streaks across the sky and I realize the edge of my robes are on fire.  
I startle awake. I'm sweating, and I know it has nothing to do my dream. The night sweats I've been experiencing for weeks now might as well be called any-time-you-dare-sleep-sweats. It's the late afternoon, and my shirt is nearly soaked through. I blink open my eyes and recognize the living room in the house in Bethesda.

Charlie must still be napping. I look around the room and find Claudia sitting in the chair across from me, reading a book.  
Claudia looks at my face and smiles. "I gave him the flash drive. And at least one mystery was solved today, Emily. There is absolutely no way that man could ever hate you."

* * *

I get approximately one block away from Emily's house before I pull my car over to the side of the road. I reach in the back seat and grab my laptop from my bag. I spend an hour looking at pictures, reading Emily's words about Charlie's progress and watching videos. My mind is coming up with choices and decisions and options as I watch my son smile and laugh for the first time, as I watch him roll and scoot and crawl, as I watch him take his first tentative steps, as I watch his language developing at an early and rapid pace. It's not lost on me as I absorb the contents of that flash drive that I may not be going at this in the most appropriate way, but my decisions and choices are feeling right in the moment.  
I don't veer towards home when I get on the freeway; I bypass it, mollify myself with the fact that Savannah is likely still sleeping, and drive towards Headquarters.

When I call Hotch and ask him to meet me at the bar near headquarters, he doesn't question it, doesn't say he thought I was sick. It's such an absurd request that he knows it's serious. It's just after three o'clock in the afternoon and I'm nursing a symbolic double-shot of Maker's; Emily and I had nearly polished off a whole bottle of the stuff the night we conceived Charlie.

Hotch walks into the bar and sits on the stool beside me. The bartender looks at him and Hotch says, "Just water."  
Then he's looking at me like, "What in the hell is going on?" and suddenly I am doing something I've never in my life done. I am the cross between a cliche and an old western. I'm sobbing freely at a bar, my elbows on the polished wood, my hands held against my temples, just thankful there are few people there. The only thing I'm missing are the boots and a bucket hat to cover my face with.

My sentences are clipped, like I can only handle a few words at a time. "I slept with Emily when I visited London. She got pregnant. She never told me, until today. She has cancer. I have a son who is two years old. She's really sick. She named him after my father. He's incredible. He's mine. I don't know what happens next. I can't travel with the team right now."

I feel Hotch's eyes on me, but I can't turn my head to look at him yet. The bartender returns with his water, and I see my drink that I'm staring down at disappear, I see Hotch's water replace it.

I turn my head and glance at him. My glass of whiskey is in front of him and he's contemplating the grain of the wood on the bar. "How sick?" he asks.

"Stage four lymphoma," I reply.

He nods and runs his thumb nail against the wood. "How pissed off are you?"

I consider that question. I'd done a lot of soul searching on the drive. "I'm angry, but I know I won't be forever, and I don't want Emily walking into her first chemotherapy session feeling like I'm angry with her. I'm mostly angry at the fact that if she hadn't gotten sick, I still wouldn't know about Charlie."

"You probably would have soon," Hotch replies.

I look at him and he continues, "Soon, Charlie would have asked about his father, probably sometime in the next year. I can see how Emily got herself stuck not telling you for a long time. It's not right, and I'd be pissed off, too, Derek. But I can't see Emily blatantly lying to her son when he got to the age where he could ask a direct question about where he came from. Can you? And once that happened, I'm sure she would have contacted you."

He's right. I can't see Emily making it much beyond the point of Charlie asking about his father. I'll never know for sure, but in an effort to dissipate my anger, I concede that point. I allow it to be truth in my mind so that I can move forward with a head that might still be full of sadness and disappointment and confusion, but not crowded with anger, too.

"Does Savannah know?" Hotch asks.

"Not yet. That's where I'm heading after this."

Hotch whistles. "What do you think her reaction is going to be?"

I also contemplated that on the drive to headquarters. And I honestly have no clue. Savannah had recently talked about looking for a new job in a smaller practice, sometime in the near future, so that she'd have more regular hours and we could maybe consider starting a family. I can see her accepting Charlie after her initial shock; he's an innocent, sweet, two year old.

But I imagine when I tell her that I've asked to be taken off travel detail with the BAU for the next few months, and that I have every intention of not going into work at all on Emily's treatment days so that I can stay with Charlie and Claudia can go with Emily to the hospital, instead of being alone or only with her mother, the proverbial shit is going to hit the fan. Savannah is going to recall every date, every weekend get-a-way, every movie, show, party that I have walked away from without second thought because of work.

I hope, over time, she'll move past that.

My priority sequence right now is to get to know Charlie, get Emily through her treatment so my son does not lose his mother who loves him so completely, and figure out the rest of my life after that. Good guy I may be, but the fact is that the woman I've been seeing since right about the time Charlie was born is pretty low on my priority list right now. I'm not sure what that says about me or our relationship.

Hotch must sense that I'm not up for talking about Savannah. He changes the topic. "Do you have a picture of Charlie?"  
I nod, reach into my back pocket and take out my phone. I find one of the better pictures I snapped of Charlie while we were at the park and slide my phone towards Hotch.

He raises it closer to his face, smiles and then laughs lightly. "He's definitely your son. And hers." He continues to stare at the picture and keeps talking. "You know, we were on a case in Texas the first time Jack rolled over. We were in Florida when he first crawled. We were in Oregon when he took his first steps. I lost months of seeing him when we were trying to hide him and Hayley from Foyet. There was so much more after that, and I've been there for a lot of it, not all of it, but most. And in all of those years, he was always my son, no matter what I missed. You have sixteen years until Charlie's grown."

He hands my phone back to me. "Don't waste your time adding up what you've missed; hold onto the fact that you don't have to miss anymore."

Hotch stands from the barstool. He claps a hand on my shoulder and then leaves it there for a few seconds longer than he normally would. "I'll email you the paperwork you'll need to fill out to get off travel duty. You can be on stand down for as long as you need. And if you need to take an official leave of absence for awhile, we can make that work, too."

I nod and stare at the glass of whiskey sitting there on bar. The ice has caused condensation to develop on the glass and I remember how on that night in Emily's flat, I played with those little rivulets of water on my glass for what felt like forever before I finally got the balls to kiss her. I remember in that moment thinking there was nothing more perfect than that.

And now we're here.

"Hotch," I say before he goes. "Tell the team. I don't think she's going to return any phone calls, except for maybe JJ's, so you're going to have to somehow get to her a different way. But you're her family as much as you're mine, even though she doesn't think so anymore. Make her remember that before she starts chemotherapy next week. Please."  
Because after my roller coaster ride of a day that's not even close to over yet, if I could only make one wish it would be that Emily survives. I think this, but I can't say it out loud, because it makes me feel strong and right and weak and wrong at the same time.

Hotch squeezes my shoulder. "I have every intention of doing just that, Morgan."


	4. Chapter 4

It's amazing how thorough my mother was when furnishing and supplying this house. I'm sure she hired a lot of help, and I'm sure she relished every moment of it. My mother is terrible with hugs and personal conversations, but she's perfectly comfortable showing her support for me in removed ways. Like decorating my dorm room and my first apartment in Georgetown. Like coming home after work after I first told her I was pregnant to find I was the proud owner of a crib, rocking chair and changing table. Like this house, that not only was furnished with a fully stocked kitchen of appliances, tableware, seasonings and food, but also other necessities, like toilet paper and cleaning supplies.

Still, she couldn't possibly get everything. Here and there, Claudia and I have found things we want or need that are missing. This afternoon, that missing ingredient is tabasco sauce.

I've got pages of documentation about what my treatment is going to look like, along with an appetite that's smaller than Charlie's, but every once in awhile I get a craving, mostly for the things that I'm going to have to avoid during chemo. Our first day in Bethesda, it was sushi. Right now, I'd practically kill for scrambled eggs with tabasco sauce, since both eggs and spicy foods are on my list of, "foods to avoid."

Claudia had made more of a face at the idea of eggs with tabasco sauce than she did to sushi, but she set off to walk to the market to get me my coveted tabasco sauce after Charlie woke up from his nap. Now Charlie is sitting in my lap and we are engaged in what has become a common activity for us this past week - looking at photo albums of me growing up.

I know if I die, there is no way he's going to remember being two years old and sitting on my lap while I engaged him with narratives about the pictures of my life spent all around the globe. Still, it makes me feel better, and he enjoys it. I hope, at the very least, he'll remember my loving arms around him.

I flip the page in the photo album and he turns his head to smile at me before pointing to a picture. "Moscow!" he says excitedly.

"You're right!" I say back, just as enthusiastically.

I glance between Charlie, the photo album, and my phone, which is sitting on the arm of the couch on silent. JJ has called twice this afternoon, Penelope once, and Hotch once. This lets me know that Derek has made contact with the team about what's going on. I haven't answered any of the calls. I'll call JJ tonight after Charlie goes to bed; I'm comfortable with her because she was more my friend than Derek's for a long time. The rest of the team, I just don't know if I can handle, because, quite frankly, I'm embarrassed. Embarrassed about my choices, embarrassed about coming back like this.

Embarrassed to be sick, which I know is crazy, but it's my truth. I don't do needy well. I don't do weakness well. And right now, I am both needy and weak, and it's going to get worse before, hopefully, it gets better.

One thing that has given me a great deal of comfort is that Charlie will get to know the team over time, that he'll have those amazing people in his life. But in my mind, I see Charlie's relationship with the BAU blossoming via Derek, not me.

I glance at my phone frequently because I'm waiting to hear from Derek. Charlie asked about him first thing after he woke up from his nap. Claudia said Derek told her he might come back for bedtime, and I'd like to let Charlie know if that's going to be the case. I don't dare call Derek, though.

I tried to get a feel for what might happen when Derek told Savannah from JJ, but she really didn't have any idea. I hope it's okay. I know it will probably take some time and getting used to, but I hope I haven't screwed things up for Derek too badly. I wanted to talk to him about Savannah before he left, but I fell asleep. And now he's on his own without the knowledge that I both would be happy for Charlie to meet her, and that I want to meet her as well.

The idea of another woman, another mother-figure, loving and holding my son makes me jealous and a little more nauseous than I usually am these days, but I'm trying very hard to be realistic and get over myself. The idea of seeing Derek with Savannah is something that bothers me, but I'm not going to analyze that too much because it's grossly unfair to feel anything but happy for him.

I'm sure Derek will call or text soon to let me know if he's coming back this evening.

Charlie reaches back and puts his hand on my face to get my attention. He may have been talking for awhile now while I was lost in thought. "Mummy?" he says, slightly exasperated.

"What, Sweetie?" I say to him with a smile.

"Where's this, Mummy?"

He points to a picture of me standing in front of a statue. "Puerta del Sol," I say. "Spain."

My phone lights up and I see a text message from Penelope. _If you're not going to answer your phone, can you at least open your door?_

My breath catches. I knew I couldn't avoid them forever, but I'm pretty pissed off in an instant that my choice in the matter about how and when is being taken from me. I feel my cheeks burn, part anger and part embarrassment. Penelope, because of how close she is with Derek, I imagined as being the most difficult.

But she's, apparently, here, at this house. I wonder if Derek handed out my address, but then think better of it. It's Penelope Garcia. If she wanted to know where I was currently residing, she could find out in a nanosecond.

I slide Charlie off my lap. "I think there's someone at the door, Charlie. You keep looking at pictures and I'll be right back."

With red cheeks, I stand and walk towards the door, preparing to tell Penelope that while I appreciate her, I'm just not up for this right now.

But when I open my door and see her standing there, her bright smile on her face, Sergio, that cat I'd given her when I moved to London, in one arm, and a box from my favorite pizza place in DC in the other, I crumble.

The tears are fast and hot, in my eyes and on my face. She steps in the doorway and shuts it behind her. She sets Sergio on the floor and puts the pizza box on the entryway table.

And I am in Penelope Garcia's comforting arms before my tears have time to fall completely down my face and drip on my shirt. Instead, they fall on her shoulder and I hug her back.

* * *

It took me years to learn that if I ever hoped of having a long-term relationship, I was going to have to not profile whomever I was dating. For a long time, I didn't realize that's what I was doing, or how it quickly ended things. Human beings are not perfect; I'm not perfect. Though I try to always be honest, we all have secrets. Though I always try to be kind and understanding, sometimes I think bad things about people, even people I care about.

If I was dating another profiler, they would have noticed the subtleties of deceit or secrets or darker thoughts here and there. Just like I used to with women when I first started dating them; the twitch of a hand, the clench of a fist, eyes searching for a plausible story. And when I noticed them, I would end things.

I realize now, it's because I wanted to end things and I was looking for an excuse. But when I first started dating Savannah, I vowed that I would not profile her, and if I found myself doing that, I would stop myself. And over the course of my two years with her, I figured out how to be just an average person in a relationship, understanding and empathetic to her feelings, without over-analyzing things.

I'd just told Savannah the whole story of my day, right up to the point that I left Emily's house. And I'm profiling her now, as she sits next to me on our couch, her leftover take-out food long forgotten as she stares in shock at a picture of Charlie on my phone. I need to know where she's going in her mind, and I need to stay one step ahead of her so I don't say something stupid.

"It's a lot to take in, I know," I say.

"Why didn't you call me earlier?" she asks.

Accusation and insecurity, I recognize. "I spent most of the day in shock myself. I wanted to see him and spend time with him, and I didn't want to tell you over the phone."

She nods and hands me back my phone. "He's cute," she says simply, but I can see the wheels in her mind turning. She's waiting for me to say something. She's got a death grip on the side of the couch cushion.

I glance at that hand, "But?" I ask.

"But, I don't know," she says, her voice rising an octave. "I guess we need to find an attorney to draw up a shared custody agreement."

I'd spent a great deal of time in my car, taking the side roads home from Quantico, thinking about the path of this conversation and things Savannah might question or say. This, I was not expecting, not at first. I expected her to ask about Emily, I expected her to be mad or to cry, I expected her to want to discuss at length how this impacted us. In the A to Z of what the next few months looked like, I'd gotten to about the middle of the alphabet in my head, and she'd jumped right to the end, bypassing her feelings, which I know is not a good thing.

"Savannah, I'm not going to drag a woman going through chemotherapy into the legalities of a custody agreement, and I'm not going to just yank Charlie away from his mother until he knows me better," I say softly.

"Then what are you going to do?" she asks, her voice strained.

"Get to know Charlie. Let you get to know him. I'm not going to be traveling with the team for the next few months, and I'm planning to take care of him on Emily's chemotherapy days, and other times she might need me when she's not feeling well. And then, when, she gets through all of that, we can talk about a more formal custody agreement."

The hand clenched on the couch cushion just got impossibly tighter and I see her breathing kick up. "Are you honestly sitting there telling me that you, the man who just last month, couldn't possibly take a day off work to spend an extra day with my parents, is going to be taking one day off a week for the next twelve weeks? For a woman who lied to you and deceived you?"

 _Here we go,_ I think. "Not for her, for Charlie. I need to get to know and spend time with my son, Savannah."

"And, by default, that means you're going to spending a lot of time with Emily. How _do_ you feel about her, besides just being disappointed and upset with her. I mean, I guess I'm wondering how you felt about her before."

I'd gone down this particular rabbit hole in my mind on the drive home, expecting this question. I honestly don't know how to answer it well. Emily was dead, and then she wasn't. She came back from Paris, and I got over her not telling me about Doyle, and I stopped having nightmares about her being dead, and then an odd thing happened. We started flirting more with each other, slinging good-humored innuendo back and forth with each other when we were alone. But we also drew a line in the sand. We had a lot of fun dancing on the edges of that line with verbal banter, but neither one of us completely crossed it. Not until that night in London.

I can't tell Savannah that I've dreamed about that night in various forms for the past several years, often when she's been in bed right beside me. And I can't really tell her how I felt about Emily back then, because I'd never let myself go too far down that path in my head, knowing it would get me nowhere.

"I cared about her," I finally say. "We were good friends, and we were close after working together for so many years. We got drunk, we had sex once, and she got pregnant."

I say this neutrally, my voice calm, my muscles relaxed.

Savannah narrows her eyes at me. And her voice raises. She doesn't quite believe me. She's mad - at me and Emily - but she's trying to control it. "And what happens if she gets through chemotherapy, goes into remission, and wants to move back to London?"

"I don't think she'd do that to me, but I don't know. We didn't get a chance to talk about that because…"

"She fell asleep. I know," is her icy response.

I look at how her body is tightening with more and more tension. I put my hand on her knee. "Just say it, Savannah. Say what's on your mind and get it out."

And she explodes. "I don't want to be a stepmother, Derek! I don't want to have another woman involved in our lives in that way, a woman you once _cared_ about. You and I only just started talking about having kids, and I was willing to explore different career options to be home more, but I'm not doing that for another woman's child. I know it's selfish and this isn't your fault, but I'm pissed. I'm pissed about how this might change you and me, and I'm pissed because you can sit there and try to deny it, but your priorities have shifted. Your decisions that you make for your life are going to be Charlie first, and me second! I'm not saying that's wrong, but I'm not sure I want to live it."

She stands from the couch to gain some leverage over me and looks down at my face. "And I don't fucking understand how you aren't more angry with her!"

"I _was_ angry. But what would anger get me? A different outcome? No. And, yes, for right now, Charlie is going to be my priority, but it doesn't mean I don't love you. You're an adult, and he's two years old, and Emily has cancer. I'm just looking for a little understanding and a willingness to try. We can make this work, it's just going to take time."

She's breathing heavily, taking in my words, mulling them over. Then she turns from me and walks towards the front door. She grabs her purse and car keys and speaks quickly through clenched teeth. "I need some air and some time to think. I love you, but I'm not sure I can handle this. Maybe if she's not in the picture, I'll feel differently."

Her words sting me, and I can see her shocked expression, see her wishing she could grab that last sentence and stuff it back in her mouth. But it's out there, and there's no taking it back. If she'd said, "Maybe if she _wasn't_ in the picture," it could be passed off as contemplation, and wouldn't feel as biting. But I can tell she meant it in the present tense. That while her hand had been clenched on that sofa minutes before, she'd had the thought already, that this would be easier for her if Emily didn't make it.

And I don't know what to do when my greatest wish, that Emily survives, is at odds with Savannah and the future of our relationship.

"Go get some air," I manage to say calmly. "Drive safely and take some time and we can talk more later tonight or tomorrow."

Then, because I don't want to be dishonest, and because I've got a little bitterness swirling in me at her words and I'm not a perfect human being, I add, "I'm going to back to Bethesda to be there for Charlie's bedtime. I'll be home around nine."

She turns and opens the door, and slams it behind her. I find some satisfaction in the loud bang.

* * *

Derek came back. He knocked on our door a little after seven o'clock that evening and I couldn't help smiling when Charlie excitedly shouted, "Daddy!"

He played with Charlie, and I watched and listened. He helped give Charlie his bath, and now he's reading bedtime stories to him, and I stay awake, even though I'm exhausted after my emotionally charged conversation with Garcia. When she left, about a half hour before Derek got there, she informed me that Hotch was going to try and stop by tomorrow, and JJ and Reid and Rossi sometime over the weekend. It appears this is their plan, a steady stream of individual visits to help me get over myself and let them back into my life.

I'm uncomfortable with it, but I don't have the energy to fight it. I've missed them, and even though I can't imagine myself ever saying it out loud, I need them, even if I feel like I don't deserve them after what I did.

Derek had seemed pleased when he saw Sergio at the house. He'd smiled and said, "I see you had a visitor."

It doesn't escape me that he likely played some part in the team's plan of infiltrating the fortress that is Emily Prentiss. Still, he's looked haggard and distracted and uncertain several times in the hour that he's been here. So I pet Sergio on my lap and keep my eyes opened and listen to him read to Charlie from down the hall.

Claudia had excused herself to her room, so when Derek comes down the hall fifteen minutes later, it's just me in the living room.

"He's already asleep, but did you want to go kiss him goodnight?" he asks me.

I shake my head. "I'll do it on my way to bed." I don't tell him that as soon as he leaves, I'll go get Charlie from his bed and bring him into mine.

Derek sits in the chair opposite me and just stares.

"How did it go with Savannah?" I finally ask.

He looks down at his lap. "A little worse than I expected," he says quietly.

I nod. I feel terrible. "She's welcome to come here and meet Charlie. Or you could take him to the park across the street and she could meet you there if she's not comfortable coming here. Or I could talk to her, if you'd like me to."

He shakes his head. "I think she needs to meet you, but she's going to need a little time first. Emily, I'm taking some time from the BAU. I'm not going to travel. And on your chemotherapy days, I'll come here to be with Charlie and Claudia can take you."

I've been the recipient of far more gifts today than I ever thought I'd receive - The absence of hate on Derek's part, the cat in my lap, Penelope's arms around me, watching Derek play with his son - but this, this is more than I feel like I can accept. Far more than I deserve.

"Derek, you don't have to do that," I say, barely above a whisper. My eyes burn like they want to cry, but I'm fresh out of tears for the moment.

"I want to," he responds. "It's important to me. It's more than just the right thing to do, it's the necessary thing. Because I want you to go into chemotherapy with support and the knowledge that I'm fighting for you to stick around. Because I am."

I blink and look down, unable to look him in the eye. I manage a few tears. And then he surprises me again. "I drove around a lot this afternoon, thinking. Savannah and I have had countless arguments about my job. I've used my father's death as the reason behind the why I'm so passionate and compelled and unable to walk away from that type of work. But I never told her about the other reason. I never told her about Carl Buford."

I look up at him, my heart swelling with compassion. "Oh," I say softly. _Brilliant response, Emily,_ I think.

Derek doesn't seem to mind. He continues. "I should have. I've thought about it many times, but I just couldn't. And the longer I went without telling her, the more difficult it became to actually broach the subject. I know it's not the same thing at all, but in that context I can see how not telling me about Charlie grew larger and larger as time went on. I'm not saying I've forgiven you, or that I'm still not deeply sad and disappointed. But earlier today I was thinking maybe I didn't know you at all, and I'm realizing that that's not true."

He pauses and I keep my eyes locked on his. "I'm planning on you living a good, long life, Emily Prentiss. So I have time to get to the forgiveness part."


	5. Chapter 5

The first property I ever purchased as a renovation project was nothing more than a shack in Manassas, Virginia. I wanted a project where I could fully immerse myself in the work, escape from the realities of my job, and feel like I was somewhat getting away from it all while still being within calling distance should there be an emergency case. The property was perfect for my purposes - the project would take me forever, there was plenty of land and trees and privacy around me, and even a little creek on the backside of the property.

The one-bedroom needed a lot of work and it took me over two years of my limited time to complete everything, to make it look like a small home instead of shack. My lack of experience with this type of work lead to many mistakes at first, and I had to scrap many of my first projects and re-start again.

It was my sanctuary from the far-more emotional work of the BAU, it was the place where I worked through missing my mom and sisters since leaving Chicago, and it was a place where I learned to let some of my demons go.

When the house was completed, I didn't sell it. I put a down payment on another property to start working on, but I kept that small place in Manassas. When my past was foisted upon me in front of the team on that case in Chicago in 2006, and my nightmares about Carl Buford resurfaced, I bought a bed for the house, and a small kitchen table and it was my primary residence for nearly five months. I slowly furnished the place while I screamed out my nightmares at night where no neighbors could hear, and when I finally went a few weeks without a nightmare, I packed up and went back to my apartment.

I rented it as a furnished one-bedroom and have had a steady stream of renters, single people or couples, who stayed, but never for long. They ultimately didn't like their commute, or they decided they needed a bigger space, or maybe it was just the fact that sometimes the type of people who wanted isolated, furnished, one-bedrooms in the middle of nowhere don't like to stay in one place for long.

I was never quick to re-rent when one tenant left. I took my time there each time, reacquainting myself with the place for a bit, creating work for myself even when it wasn't needed, before putting it back on the rental market.

My most recent tenants moved out this past May, and I haven't advertised it for a rental yet. Summer is the best time at this place - as dusk falls, you can hear the frogs croaking from the creek, and then, as night envelopes the property, the treeline comes to life with fireflies. When my last tenants first moved out, I imagined summer nights when Savannah was working that I could be here, repainting or possibly updating the bathroom a bit.

I wasn't planning on needing it as my emotional sanctuary again, but that's where I am the Sunday evening before Emily starts chemotherapy. I've been sitting on the back deck for four hours now, listening to the frogs, and now watching the fireflies make their first appearance.

The past five days have exhausted, confused and humbled me. I've been angry at times, with both Savannah and Emily, but mostly Savannah. And I've become so attached to Charlie that I can't imagine a single day not seeing him.

Emily pisses me off because I talk in "whens" and she answers back in "ifs."

" _When this is over and you go into remission, are you going to go back to London?"_

" _If I get to that point, I'll talk with you and we'll figure out what's best for Charlie."_

" _When does your chemotherapy end and your radiation begin?"_

" _If I make it that far, my radiation will start right after my chemo ends, sometime around the end of October. Provided there are no complications."_

" _When it's all over, how do you see this going?"_

" _If I'm there to have a part in the say of it, I imagine you and I can come up with a solution that works for us."_

These statements make me want to shake her more than I did when she first told me about Charlie. Her emotions around telling me about him, I can understand. Her tears about me helping her out through all of this, I can understand. Her absolute emotional indifference to her own mortality when she talks to me about it, I just can't understand at all.

 _Fucking want to live! Believe it!_ I want to scream at her.

I've been relatively mute with the team during the handful of hours I've been at headquarters with them. I have too much to process in my head to actually speak out loud, and sometimes I think I'm being selfish when it comes to Savannah, and I don't want anyone to voice their agreement to that assessment out loud. I simply don't want the confirmation.

The first day I knew Charlie, after I'd tucked him into bed at night, spoken briefly with Emily, and then made my way home by nine o'clock, like I told Savannah I would do, she wasn't there. I got a text at around eleven o'clock stating she was going to stay at her friend Marina's house that night.

The next day, a Thursday, I went into work and couldn't really stand the sad, worried looks on the faces of my BAU family. I spent four hours in my office with the door shut, researching lymphoma and chemotherapy instead of doing the paperwork I should have been doing. Then I walked out - actually, it was more like I snuck out - and made my way back to Bethesda to be there before Charlie when down for his nap.

Savannah came home that night, but she didn't say much. I got angry when she almost tried to pretend like nothing was different. There was a BIG difference there now. And when she asked me if I wanted to watch a movie, I bit back my anger at the fact that I felt like I had to sit there on the couch with her instead of tucking my son into bed that night.

On Friday, I watched Charlie alone for the first time. Emily had to go to Baltimore for blood work, and Claudia went with her. Emily's house was literally ten minutes away from Savannah's hospital and I'd talked to her in the morning about meeting me and Charlie at the park for lunch. She seemed opened to it, but then had called to say she was too busy to get away. I told her I could bring Charlie to her and we could have lunch at the hospital, and she said it wasn't going to work.

And then that night, she came home and was affectionate and suggested we just skip dinner and go upstairs. I decided I wasn't going to play her passive-aggressive games. "You blew us off at lunch. I know you could have gotten away. And the last thing I want to do is go upstairs with you right now. I have a son, and I can't be affectionate with you, or even try to pretend, unless you can accept him in our lives as the situation stands," I said softly but firmly.

I slept on the couch that night.

Saturday was a day where I tried to be around Charlie and also be around for Savannah, in case she wanted to talk. I made three round-trips between home and Bethesda that day. After my final trip home, she finally started talking. She said, "Maybe you could bring Charlie here on Monday during Emily's chemotherapy session. I don't work, and I think I would feel more comfortable with that. I think I need you to have only minimal contact with Emily through all of this."

Wrong or right, my plans for Monday had been to show up like a knight in shining armor at Emily's house, give her a boost of confidence that my day with Charlie would be better than perfect and she was going to be the badass woman I always knew her to be through all of this, and have dinner waiting for her when she got home from her treatment.

But I conceded. I conceded that this request from Savannah was not at all unreasonable. And when I called Emily to ask her, she was only just a little hesitant, like she knew denying the request was unreasonable, too.

"He should get to know your house and Savannah, absolutely," she'd said with barely a hitch in her voice.

So I agreed. I told Savannah that I would pick Charlie up on Monday morning - tomorrow morning - at seven-thirty, and be back home around eight o'clock. And I'm sitting here on this back porch of a tiny house in Manassas trying to come to terms with a decision that doesn't feel quite right to me.

It's not that there's any absolute right or wrong here, not at all. But I wonder when we're all going to stretch ourselves just thin enough doing the right things for what feels like the wrong reasons until we snap, until the threads that hold us together are frayed and we can't put ourselves together anymore.

I wonder who is going to snap first.

If I had to put money on it, there's really no way in hell I'd bet against Emily. She's going to drive me crazy trying to keep me at arm's length, and she's going to make selfless decisions that only hurt her without saying anything at all, but she's going to come through this intact, even if she doesn't believe it right now.

That leaves me or Savannah, and I honestly don't know who is going to come out on top, or if there can even be a winner here. I love her, but right now, I can only love her in the context of her accepting Charlie and this life that sprung up at us from out of nowhere. I can't fix it for her or sugarcoat it for her too much, even if I feel selfish about that.

I rest the heels of my shoes on the back porch railing on the house in Manassas and a firefly comes close enough to me that I can grab it.

I imagine Charlie at this house. I imagine catching fireflies in a jar, marveling at them, and then releasing them into the night.

And the thing that makes me think that I'm going to be the one who snaps first, who completely loses my shit, is the fact that when I imagine Charlie at this house that has only ever been my private, secret sanctuary, the person I see there with us is Emily, not Savannah.

And that's what really lets me know that if there was a race of the most selfish between me, Emily and Savannah, we'd go a long distance neck and neck, but I'd probably win.

* * *

My mother is good at ceremonies; it's her second favorite way to be present in my life besides buying me things. She wasn't around much when I was young, or at least not always there when I wanted or needed her to be. But she was there for my Communion and Confirmation, she was there for my graduations from middle and high school, she was there at my college graduation and my graduation from the FBI Academy.

Apparently, chemotherapy qualifies as a ceremony. She didn't knock when she got to our house. I actually only knew she was already there because I caught a glimpse of her through the front window on my way to get Charlie a cup of milk.

I turned away from the kitchen at that point and went to the front door instead. She was sitting there on our front steps in an impeccable designer suit.

"Why didn't you knock?" I ask her.

"I didn't want to wake you if you were still sleeping. The house was quiet."

She looks almost embarrassed. I narrow my eyes at her so she can't lie and can't look away. "How long have you been here?"

"Just a little while," she says.

I raise an eyebrow. She's not going to tell me, but my heart swells for my mother. I'd always assumed she'd somehow bribed her way into front row seats at my ceremonies or graduations, but maybe she was there extra early for a front row seat all the time.

The morning moves quickly. I dress comfortably, as my oncologist and the paperwork told me to do. I force enough breakfast in my mouth to keep the Prednisone down, the drug that's supposed to help this all along. I'll be taking it every day for the next twelve weeks, at least. And I'll be coming home with many more pills this afternoon.

I'm not numb to it. I know how I've talked about it has lead Derek, Claudia, my mother and the BAU team to believe that maybe I am. I'm good at hiding my emotions. It's all awful to me, every last bit of it. I'm angry and I feel like all the years I spent taking care of my body have been worthless and pointless.

I imagine if I didn't have Charlie, I'd be screaming at every person who was willing to talk to me about the unfairness of it all. But I don't have time for that.

Chemotherapy is what I have. I want to get on with it because I want to know if it's working. The sooner, the better. I don't want to give up, but I want to know how hard I'm going to have to fight, or if there's any fight in me at all, and I want to know sooner rather than later.

Give me a sociopath with a gun any time - at least I'd have skills to fight him, mentally and physically. All I have now is my body, and a shit ton of chemicals that people have spent millions of dollars researching. I'm banking on them.

Derek shows up right on time, and Charlie is ecstatic to see him. When my mother leads the way out of the house, and Claudia follows, I hang back to give Charlie an extra hug. When I stand, Derek is right in front of me.

I reach forward to give him a quick hug of thanks, for taking care of Charlie and letting me have Claudia. But he doesn't let it be quick. He doesn't let me go. His head moves from the friendly position of over my shoulder to a more intimate position, turned on my shoulder and lips next to my ears. He inhales before he speaks, and I am feeling overwhelmed. I can't have him this close, it's not right to let him be this close. But I don't push him away.

I imagine he must have been working on that ultimate sentence to say in his head at this moment for awhile, but I can sense when it's not coming out. He's gasping and I can feel his lips moving, but no sound squeezes past his lips.

Finally, he says, "You go kick cancer's ass."

And though I was on the verge of tears from the moment his arms wrapped around me, at those words, I laugh.

It's the first genuine, hopeful laugh that's crossed my lips since my diagnosis.

* * *

I take Charlie home, and Savannah's not there. She was there when I left to pick him up, but she's gone now. All that's there is a note. "Got called in. Home by noon. I'm so sorry."

I show the house to my son, my phone clenched in one hand. I take him on a walk around the yard and up and down the block. We play with the toys Emily and Claudia packed for him in a little backpack.

My home feels large and empty, and I feel large and empty. And I'm mad as fuck all, but I'm trying to tame that feeling for Charlie's sake. Savannah and I have both had our issues around our careers and being called away at a moment's notice, and we've both long left the idea of taking it personally behind. But this feels like a punch in gut. She's no longer just starting at Bethesda Memorial, she's pretty well in there. She could have said she couldn't come in, especially today, but she didn't.

Noon comes. I get a text from Savannah that she's going to be a little longer.

I look at my phone. "Shit," I mutter.

Charlie looks at me and opens his palms, shrugs his shoulders in question. "What's shit?" he asks.

I laugh. "Nothing, Charlie. Let's get your things packed up. We'll have lunch at your house."

I text Savannah back, "Don't bother."

It's when I'm packing Charlie's bag that I acknowledge that I need to call my mother soon. I'd been waiting to present her with some certainties, but there are none here. The only certainty is me and Charlie and the absolute faith I have in Emily kicking cancer's ass and taking names. What comes after that, I have no clue.

My faith in Savannah is gone for the moment, and I don't know if I can get it back.

I take Charlie home. I settle him in his little bed for his nap. I settle on Emily's couch and pull paperwork out of my bag and start working.

When Emily returns late that afternoon with bottles and bottles of drugs, and looking more than a little worse for the wear, Charlie and I are there to greet her.


	6. Chapter 6

My first chemotherapy session was just a little over seven hours - I was told to expect that, the first time around, and was told that they'd probably never be over eight hours - except maybe the weeks I need a CT scan - but never to expect anything under five. I spent seven hours and fifteen minutes in a comfortable chair dozing, eating what I could, daydreaming and reading in a small, bright, private room while my mother and Claudia sat as sentries near me.

When we first arrived at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, I was not surprised when Claudia hopped out of the car and grabbed our bag full of snacks and books and my iPad filled with movies. I was not surprised when she reached out and squeezed my hand and then kept hers in mine. What did surprise me was when my mother reached out and took my other hand.

It took everything in me not to shake it off.

Claudia was fine. Claudia has been affectionate and a comfort for me for over two years now. But my mother voluntarily touching me like that, and the team being around acting almost as if I did nothing wrong keeping Charlie from Derek, and Derek himself with his cheerful, optimistic attitude and not a trace of anger towards me at all anymore - they're all making me feel like I've got one foot in the grave already. And when I'm not feeling that way, I'm feeling selfish - selfish for soaking up their kindness when I don't feel like I deserve it.

Because the stark reality is that if I had just shown up here a week ago, with no cancer and only Charlie, I wouldn't be getting daily visitors bearing smiles and hugs and treats every damned day.

I know I'm fighting dirty when I throw their optimism back in their faces. They all try to pretend that it doesn't bother them, but they aren't fooling me. I see the hurt in Derek's face when he talks like I'm going to come through this just fine and I answer back in a way that reminds him that nothing is certain. It's not that I don't believe I can survive this; I just need him to remember it's not a certainty. I need him to be making life decisions for himself, whether I'm here or not.

The one phrase I've grown tired of hearing to the point of weariness in the past couple of weeks is, "It's going to be okay."

I've heard this every day for over two weeks now, sometimes multiple times a day from different people. I bite my tongue, but there's only one question I want to fire back, but the word I emphasize is often different.

"How do you fucking _know_?"

"How do _you_ fucking know?"

"How do you _fucking_ know?"

My thoughts were sad when my mother and Claudia walked me into the center. Every step towards my private treatment room, I was thinking about how Savannah had probably met Charlie by now. The thought broke my heart even though I accepted it was necessary, that it was exactly what I wanted - Derek living his life on his own path, a path that had nothing to do with me and could include Charlie.

I'd elected to not get an IV port surgically placed in me. I was told I had good veins and as long as that held true, the choice was mine. I considered it, but the fact is that I have quite enough scars on my body, and the thought of two more incision scars on my chest, however small, is entirely unappealing.

A nurse came into my room, and once again went over the medication I'd be taking home with me, and Claudia listened intently while my mother sat stiffly in the chair next to me, back to a version of herself I recognized. I was given an Ativan to relax me, hooked up to monitors, my oncologist stopped by to check in, and twenty minutes after that, the party officially got started. The nurse found a good vein on the back of my hand and the first part of my cocktail for the day - Mechlorethamine - began its slow drip into my system. _Nausea, low blood count, hair loss, infertility_ , I thought, remembering the side effects of this particular drug, one of three I'd receive that day.

I stared at the tubing and all I could think about was the thirty minutes I'd spent on one website that had me absolutely convinced that chemotherapy was going to kill me faster than my cancer. I'm a realist and I closed the window to that website after reading two articles that had my heart racing. I did the medical research again and studied the numbers, and I played the odds. Sixty-five percent survival rate is nothing to turn away from. Still, I couldn't help the voice in the back of my head wondering if all of those drugs were going to get the best of me before I could even hope to get better, while I'm blissed out on Ativan and none the wiser.

All of this is a metaphorically tough pill to swallow, considering that for the most part I don't even like to take so much as aspirin.

"When you were three years old and we lived in Egypt, you went stumbling down some concrete steps and split your chin open," my mother said, interrupting me from my thoughts.

I turned to look at her and she took my free hand in hers. "There was so much blood and I rushed you to the closest clinic. It was the first time I'd had to take you to a doctor when it wasn't a regular check up."

I stared at her eyes that were shining with unshed tears. "When we got there, the nurse asked me questions in Arabic that I didn't totally understand and couldn't really answer. And, you, Emily, sat up and wiped your tears. You held the ice pack I'd given you on your chin, and answered her questions in perfectly fluent Arabic. Then you put your head against my shoulder and whispered, 'She wanted to know if I hit my head anywhere else.' I didn't even know you could speak Arabic that well yet; I'm not even sure you knew it until then. But it was the first time I realized how completely amazing you are. And I'm sure you'll knock me off my feet again through all of this."

I squeezed my mother's hand and smiled softly at her, giving back what I could at her unfamiliar praise and softness. I closed my eyes. If I'd tried to speak then, the tears would have started, and I didn't think I'd be able to staunch the flow.

The seven hours passed relatively quickly, considering. I sent Derek a text on the way home to let him know we were on our way; he texted back that he and Charlie were already at the house and dinner was on the stove - both statements surprised me.

Now it's late evening, my mother is gone, and Claudia has taken Charlie over to the park to play before his bath.

Derek sits at my kitchen table with me as I pull the pill bottles out of a bag. "How come you were back here so early?" I finally have the opportunity to ask.

"Savannah got called into work and she chose to go. She never even met Charlie; she was gone before we got back to the house."

I can hear the bitterness, anger and sadness in his voice. I'm tired. My nausea is barely being held at bay with the Zofran I was given before I left the hospital, and the last drug I received today causes fatigue, and I'm feeling it keenly.

I sit up straighter to try and combat my sleepiness for a little longer. A slight thrill goes through me that Savannah had not yet met Charlie, and then I mentally slap myself for that thought. "She's probably very scared and nervous, Derek. Don't judge her too harshly for how she's reacting to this right now. It's been less than a week."

Derek just stares at me and I can't read his expression. I look down and pull the pill sorter closer to me; it's a large contraption to help me organize the multiple drugs I need to take and make sure I take them at precisely the right time. Derek pulls the pill bottles towards him. "What are all of these?" he asks, changing the topic.

"An entirely fucked up game of chasing tail," I reply.

He laughs lightly and raises an eyebrow.

I point at the bottles while I talk in a detached voice, "Prednisone, for anti-inflammatory purposes, and it also helps fight any allergic reactions to the chemotherapy. They say it can combat the nausea that is caused by chemotherapy, but it can also cause nausea on its own. Zantac, to fight the heartburn that is often caused by Prednisone. Zofran, so I don't puke up whatever I manage to get down. Colase, a stool softener, so I can take a crap after whatever it is I'm able to keep down, because pretty much everything that's going into my system these days causes constipation. Ativan, so I can sleep because the Prednisone can cause insomnia, and also so I'm not so anxious; that's an as-needed one. Septra, which I only need to take on weekends, to prevent infection that can come from long-term Prednisone use. I'll only probably need the Zofran on odd weeks. The even weeks are different drugs that don't cause nausea; I'll only be combating a forty-eight hour raging fever then."

I stop pointing and glance at Derek. He has one tear slowly making its way down his cheek. It's the first time I've seen him cry in all of this mess since the day I told him about Charlie. He clears his throat when I look at him and pulls the pill sorter his way. "Well," he says, "Let's get these in the right places."

I rest my chin in my hand and watch him carefully read the labels and get pills in the correct slots. I feel like I should say something, something bigger than "Thank you," - for being here, for making dinner, for taking care of Charlie and loving him unconditionally and absolutely from the moment they first met - but my brain is foggy and I can't come up with the words.

The next thing I'm aware of is a feeling of weightlessness and a warmth around me. I struggle to open my eyes as I feel my body carried and then placed on a soft surface. Then there are warm, gentle hands under my shirt, and I feel the hooks on my bra release. That wakes me a little. "What are you doing?" I mumble.

"Making sure you're comfortable," Derek replies.

His hand reaches up the sleeve of my t-shirt and pulls one bra strap down and off my arm, then repeats the process with the other arm, finally pulling my bra out through my shirt sleeve. My eyes are barely open and the only sensation I'm aware of are his fingers on my skin.

He helps me lay back on the pillow and covers me up. "You should go home and talk to her," I mumble.

"I will. After Charlie goes to bed tonight. Claudia and I have got this, Emily. Just sleep."

I feel his lips press gently against my forehead, and sigh. I should be pushing him away physically and emotionally, but I can't find the energy in the moment.

* * *

When Claudia returns from the park with Charlie, I tell her to take an hour to herself, that I'll handle bath time and bedtime. She looks thankful.

Charlie brings me two books to read to him that night: Make Way for Ducklings and My Mommy Has Cancer.

It's not a pleasant book with a happy ending; it's an age-appropriate, factual account of what happens during chemotherapy. I read to him about how the mommy in the book is sick with a cold and it turns out the cold's name is cancer. I read about the mommy in the book losing her hair, sleeping a lot, throwing up. I read about how even when the mommy is sick or sleeping a lot, she loves her children. I get to the last page and flip it over, looking for the resolution - the mommy getting better, the mommy's hair growing back, but there is no resolution. The story simply ends with a bald woman looking tired and hugging her children close.

Even Charlie's little book leaves me in limbo, wondering what the future holds.

Charlie turns to look at me. "Again, Daddy?" he asks.

I manage a smile through the huge lump in my throat and shake my head. "Tomorrow. It's past your bedtime."

He's agreeable to that. He gets into his little bed, and I tuck him in. I give him a kiss on his forehead and each cheek. "I'll be back tomorrow morning right around the time you wake up," I tell him, because I will.

I've had many epiphanies on this day that are all rattling around in my head.

I need to call and spade and spade here - I've been in the BAU office for about eight hours since nearly a week ago, and I'm on a leave of absence whether I've officially declared that or not. I have no intention of returning to work tomorrow. I can't leave a twenty-three year old in charge of a toddler and Emily when she might be suffering from the side-effects of chemotherapy. I need to call Hotch.

I need to call my mother, and I need to talk to Savannah. But first, I need to make a stop.

I knock on Claudia's bedroom door to let her know I'm leaving, and tell her that I'll be back tomorrow morning around seven. I make her promise to call me if she needs anything at all.

"Absolutely," she says.

"Is he always so agreeable?"

Claudia smiles. "Charlie? I've got six younger siblings, Mr. Morgan, and I've never seen a more flexible two year old. Aside from the first couple of months of his life, while he had colic and Emily learned to relax a little, he's always been like that."

I smile slightly and nod at her. "Call me Derek, please."

I take a peek into Emily's room and find her sleeping soundly, then I make my way out of her house, hop in my car, and start my drive to Rossi's house.

There's little traffic and I pull up to his well-lit house just thirty-five minutes later. He's standing in his front doorway when I make my way up the front steps. "I saw you pull in. How did Emily's chemotherapy go?" he asks.

"She seems okay. Tired, but okay." I follow him into his kitchen and he asks if I want a drink. I shake my head. "You had a daughter you never knew about. What would you have done if her mother had called you when she found out she was pregnant?"

Dave leans against his kitchen counter and sighs, taking a swig of his drink. "I was wondering when I'd see you and you'd ask that question. The sad answer is that I probably wouldn't have gone, back then. I would have been great at birthday cards and writing checks, but I would have stayed put. And that's why she didn't call me to tell me, because she didn't want that disappointment."

I look at him and he voices what I've already been thinking since the moment in Emily's kitchen a couple hours before, when she encouraged me to talk to Savannah and give her a chance. Dave looks into the bottom of his glass while he talks. "In the years I've known Emily, I've seen her sacrifice her own safety so Reid wasn't hurt, I've seen her sacrifice her life with Doyle so we all wouldn't be hurt. If I had to guess, I think the two of you were probably getting closer that year after she came back from Paris and she cut bait and swam away because she couldn't handle it. Emily didn't call you when she found out she was pregnant for the opposite reason I wasn't called; Emily knew you'd be on the next flight out without hesitation and it scared the ever loving crap out of her, what that could possibly look like," Rossi says.

I nod and blink back tears. I know he's right. "She doesn't want anyone," I say.

Rossi shakes his head. "No, she doesn't want to believe she wants or needs anyone because it scares her. And that woman is on the brink of blowing a gasket with all of us stopping by, and accepting the situation as it is with no blame, and caring about her."

I raise my eyebrows. "Do you think everyone should back off?"

Rossi smiles and shakes his head. "No. Emily needs to a blow a gasket before she can get to the other side, where she feels like she deserves all of us, don't you think?"

I think and nod again. "Thank you. I need to get home and talk to Savannah."

"How are things going there?" he asks.

"Not well, but I need to get to the other side, too," is my cryptic response. But I look at Rossi's sympathetic face and realize I'm not cryptic at all.

When I get home, I find Savannah in our bed, blindly staring at the TV, her eyes puffy from crying. I lean against the wall in the bedroom and put my hands in my pockets.

"There was an emergency and they needed me," she implores.

I shake my head at her softly. "I'm not saying there wasn't an emergency, but please don't tell me it could only be you. Actually, it doesn't matter if that's, true, too. I don't want to fight. I realized two things today. The first is that if you had an ex - and I use that term loosely because I wouldn't consider Emily an ex, but if she was - if you had an ex who needed help through cancer, I'd probably be pretty pissed and jealous and concerned when you went to help him. Because I didn't understand cancer or chemotherapy. But _you_ do. You did an oncology rotation, I remember you talking about it. You know how this all goes. Knowing what I know now, and it's only the tip of the iceberg compared to what's coming, I wouldn't deny you helping out an ex who needed you, no matter who he was to you before. I couldn't."

There are fresh tears rolling down her cheeks, and she opens her mouth to speak, but I cut her off. "I'm not judging how you feel, or saying it's wrong, but I can't only minimally see Emily right now, and I know you can't handle that. And, Savannah, no matter how much I love you, I can't live with you when I know that the only way you could truly live with me and Charlie is if Emily isn't in the picture, if she dies."

Savannah sobs with her hands in her face and I walk to the closet to retrieve a duffel bag larger than my go bag. I randomly pack things with no rhyme or reason, gently, while she watches from between her fingers.

"Are you going back to her house?" she finally asks when my bag is nearly filled.

I shake my head softly. "To the rental in Manasses for now. When things have settled down a bit, we can talk, about this house and what we do next."

I zip up my bag and sit on the edge of the bed near her hip. I turn my head so I'm facing her. "This is no one's fault, Savannah. It just is. I have a son, and I have a very good friend who is his mother, and they both need me right now, and you can't find a way that's comfortable for you to fit into that picture. I don't blame you. You need to take care of yourself, and I need to take care of me."

I take her hand in mine and kiss the back of it, kiss the skin that has been so familiar to me for two years. I don't regret the past two years, not by a long shot, and I'll miss her.

She has a hard time letting go of my hand when I stand, but finally releases me. I grab my bag and sling it over my shoulder. I don't look back when I hit the doorway.

It's nearly ten-thirty when I reach the small house in Manasses, but it's an hour earlier in Chicago. I throw my bag down on the floor in the small living space and flop onto the couch. I dial my mom, my tears starting as soon as I hear the phone ringing. When she answers, I'm a mess. "Mama," I whisper, feeling comforted and ridiculous when my childhood name for her slips past my lips.


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N - I'm going to try and keep up with this story over the next week, but my twins are "graduating" from 5th grade/elementary school, and I've got an 8th grader graduating from middle school. All on the same day with a myriad of end-of-year celebrations thrown in here and there. So...it's going to be a crazy seven days coming up, but I'll keep writing as much and as quickly as I can! Thanks for all of the reviews!_

XXXXXX

* * *

 _I wipe my eyes with one hand and press out the remains of the burning embers on the edge of my robe with my other. Strangely, the heat doesn't burn my hand. I look up and realize I'm no longer in my flat in London; it takes me a moment to place myself. I'm in the bullpen of the BAU. There is no one immediately around me, but in the distance, I see the rest of the team, except Derek. Reid is in a Halloween mask, for some reason. They glance at me as they talk, but none of them really acknowledge me; it's like they don't even know who I am. I'm about to call out to them when I'm distracted by the sound of hooves hitting the floor and a blazing, blinding light._

 _Derek hops out of the sun chariot and pulls Charlie into his arms. He smiles at the stunned look on my face._

" _I told you we'd come back," he says._

 _I don't answer him. I'm looking at Charlie who is looking at me like he doesn't know me. The tears start up again and I turn my gaze to Derek._

" _It's your hair," Derek says. "He doesn't recognize you without your hair."_

" _My new mommy has hair," Charlie says, without a hint of a British accent._

 _My hands reach up in horror and I realize I'm bald._

I gasp awake from my dream and look at my bedside clock. It's just after three o'clock in the morning. My hands fly to my hair and I find it all still there. Before I can even analyze my dream, my stomach lurches and rolls and cramps up and I'm running towards my bathroom.

The contents that empty from my stomach, the undigested remains of the chicken noodle soup Derek prepared for dinner the night before, let me know that I'm not missing days and haven't flashed into the future. It's the middle of the night after my first chemotherapy session. But between my heaving into the toilet, I reach my hands up and touch my hair, just to reassure myself.

I'm trying to remember if it's time for another Zofran, and I recall a vague memory of Claudia coming to my room with water and pills around eleven o'clock. I'm not due for another Zofran until morning. Yet here I am, throwing up.

And then, something shifts. This isn't like having a stomach virus or food poisoning; this is a beast of an entirely different caliber. There is no break here, no chance to stand and wash my face, no chance to hardly catch a breath at all. I am throwing up violently, and my stomach won't stop spasming. I'm sweating and I'm scared. I have no idea how long I heave over the toilet before I see from the fuzzy edges of my vision Charlie in my bathroom, closely followed by Claudia.

I can't stop throwing up to formulate enough words, but I hear Charlie crying out, "Is it the cancer cold?" which only causes me to start sobbing along with everything else. I glance to see Claudia pick him up. It's the first time I've ever seen her look truly frightened.

"I'll call Derek," she says as she tries to comfort Charlie in her arms.

"NO!" I manage to gasp. The last thing Derek needs is a middle-of-the-night call from us saying I need help. It's the last thing I want. I've already created enough of a divide in his life without interrupting his and Savannah's sleep.

"I'll call someone else then. Penelope? And the emergency number for your doctor," Claudia says frantically.

I nod as I achingly retch yet again over the toilet. My stomach is spasming so much that every time I involuntarily lurch forward and gag over the toilet, I'm also peeing my pants.

I'm a fucking sight.

I almost call Claudia back to tell her to skip calling Penelope, because I want no one I know to see me this way, but I can't find my breath or vocal cords long enough to call out her name.

From down the hall, I can hear her muffled voice. And I can hear Charlie crying.

I'm not sure how long I stay like that, over the toilet, but eventually I realize that even though my stomach is still spasming and even though I'm still gagging, there is simply not a thing left inside me to come up anymore. Claudia comes back in the room at one point, still holding Charlie who is half asleep on her shoulder. "Penelope's coming, and she's picking up some other medicine for you on her way."

I nod and wave my hand at her. I want her to keep Charlie away from all of this and she gets the message and leaves the room.

My hands are shaking and my arms feel weak, but I drag my wet pants and underwear off my body and pull my shirt over my head. I crawl and gag and drag my body into my shower, snagging a towel on the way in. I manage to reach up enough to turn the water on and am shocked by the icy cold, but it quickly warms up. I sit on the shower floor and slump back against the tiled wall. I let the water rinse away the urine on my legs and the vomit that splashed back at me when I was throwing up. Then I lay the towel over my body as best I can, and I wait, all the while with my stomach lurching and the continuous gagging.

There's no way I can make it back to my bed on my own - it feels like a mile away.

That's how Derek finds me a little while later, still in the shower with the warm water streaming down on my towel-covered body, and I realize my error in judgement. Calling Penelope was essentially the same thing as calling Derek. I shoot him a look of anger, but I can't hold it; I'm too exhausted, and, quite frankly, he's the only one I want right now, but he shouldn't be here.

* * *

It takes me a moment to remember where I am when my phone wakes me in the middle of the night. It's three-thirty in the morning, and I'm in the bed in the house in Manassas. I groan when I see it's Penelope. My initial thought is that there's a case, something local. I never did get to calling Hotch the night before about an official leave of absence.

My voice is hoarse when I answer the phone, both from sleep and the fact that I spoke with my mother for so long the night before. "What is it?" I answer.

"Claudia needs help. Emily needs help. Emily wouldn't let Claudia call you, but I am, because when it comes down to it, I can deal with her being crazy angry with me better than I can deal with you being that way."

I'm up in a flash. I'm still dressed from the day before and only need to pull on my shoes. "What's wrong?"

"She can't stop throwing up. The on-call oncologist called in a prescription for Compazine suppositories. They're at a twenty-four hour pharmacy near her house, the CVS on Georgia Avenue. If they don't work within an hour, she needs to go to the nearest hospital."

I'm already out the front door and heading towards my car, my feet not totally stuffed into my shoes, when she finishes her sentence.

"I'll keep you posted," I say as I open my car door. "And thank you."

I disconnect the phone and toss it on my passenger seat, and then I'm driving like a bat out of a hell. I figure if I get stopped I can flash my badge and explain. I'm a little over twenty minutes farther away from Emily now that I'm in Manassas, but I make the fifty minute drive to the pharmacy in thirty-five.

I use my badge to pick up the prescription, and I'm at Emily's house five minutes later. Claudia opens the door for me, Charlie asleep with his head on her shoulder. She cringes when she sees it me, but doesn't make a comment, just glances in the direction of the hallway, towards Emily's room.

I hear the water running before I reach the bathroom and see through the glass doors of her shower that she is slumped on the floor with the water pouring over her towel-covered body. I see her pants and see the toilet, and smell a combination of both urine and vomit and know exactly what happened here.

She looks at me when I walk into the small space, and there's a brief glimpse of fire in her eyes, like she's pissed I'm there, but she can't hold it for long. She's weak and embarrassed and doesn't have an ounce of fight in her, and I realize the monumental hurdle she must be trying to get over to have _anyone_ there helping her. Her eyes look away, and I get down to business.

I grab a dry towel and open the shower door to turn off the water. I lay the dry towel over the wet one and hold it up near her chest while quickly reaching underneath and pulling the wet towel away from her body. I see her body weakly convulsing, and her making feeble gagging motions with her throat and mouth. I lift her torso towards me and tuck the dry towel around her body. There are no other towels in the bathroom and I don't know where she keeps them, so I snag a hand towel and dry her arms, legs and feet.

I have to get into a very awkward position in order to make it work, but I manage, with one leg in the shower, and one outside, to lift her body towards me and lift her up. I tuck the towel firmly around her before gathering her in my arms. I realize I should have kicked off my shoes, because I'm leaving a mess of dirty, wet footprints all over her white bathroom. I can't even believe I'm thinking about such trivial matters at the moment, and I'm brought back to what's important when I realize that the shaking body in my arms is now sobbing.

I get Emily into her bed, and cover her up, towel and all. Then I go for the bag from the pharmacy that I left on her bathroom counter, quickly ripping through the foil of one of the Compazine suppositories and taking the creamy, bullet-like pellet in my hand.

"Can you do it?" I ask her. It's an honest question, because she looks so completely wiped out, and there are tears streaming down her face. The fire is back in her eyes and her arm shoots out towards the suppository in my hand with more strength than I would have thought she had in her at the moment.

Her hand disappears under the covers, and I turn my body and head towards the bathroom to wet a washcloth. I come back to the bed and hand it to her and she wipes her hands.

Her head slumps on the pillow and I pull a chair over from the corner of the room and sit beside her. Her eyes are only half opened, and staring at my face. I don't say anything, but I keep my eyes on hers, trying to convey the message that this wasn't a choice, this wasn't something she needs to be embarrassed about, and that this doesn't matter to me at all in the way she fears, that it makes her weak; it only matters in the way that I can help her.

We wait.

I watch as the spasming in her body tapers off until, twenty minutes later, it completely stops. She sighs in relief. I smile at her. "At least now we know Zofran doesn't work. You're a Compazine kind of gal."

She manages to lift one side of her mouth slightly at that, and then murmurs, "You should go home now."

I don't say anything back; we'll talk later in the morning once she's gotten some rest. I watch her eyes close completely, and she is out.

I walk out of the room to check on the rest of the house and find Claudia asleep next to Charlie in his little bed. I go back to Emily's room and quietly collect her soiled clothing and the towels from her bathroom and carry them to the laundry room. Then I kick off my shoes, find the cleaning supplies I need and completely clean up the bathroom and toilet until it looks like this night was just a bad dream.

Finally, I grab a pillow from the other side of Emily's bed, and the throw blanket that's folded at the foot of it and lay down on her carpeted floor. I know I'm not going to be able to sleep, but I'm also not willing to leave the room.

It's in that moment that I realize it's now July twenty-sixth, and it's been three years and one day since the last time I helped clean Emily up in a bathroom after she threw up. Three years and one day since we conceived Charlie.

Just when I think I'm catching up with all the changes that have been flung at me in the past week, something shifts and I realize my heart is way ahead of my brain, and I'm not getting a lot of time to catch up at all. I stare at the ceiling and listen to the even cadence of Emily's breathing.

* * *

There's evidence of Derek all over my house and I'm not sure how to feel about it. I'm not sure about anything anymore. He's living at a house he owns in Manassas, and Savannah is living alone, and it's all my fault, though the one time I expressed that sentiment to him, he assured me it wasn't.

The morning after that horrendous couple of hours in the bathroom when he arrived like a knight in shining armor bearing Compazine, he came into my room with oatmeal on a breakfast tray. I had to eat to take my medicine, and I had to take my medicine, and if I could keep neither down, I would have to go to the hospital. I managed, swapping out the Zofran for Compazine in pill form, something else Derek had picked up from the pharmacy in the middle of the night.

He sat beside me in a chair while I slowly ate the oatmeal and explained that he'd moved out and was taking a leave of absence, that he had every intention of being right there beside me through my treatment.

When I argued, he cut me off with a, "Then pretend I'm here for Charlie so Claudia can be here for you."

When I told him that the side-effects of my chemotherapy would likely only be acute for forty-eight hours, if they got to that point at all again, and wondered what he'd do the rest of the week, he responded with, "If that proves to be true, I'll go on a reduced contract and just do the BAU paperwork for them. Or I'll work on the house in Manassas."

When I told him, once again, that he should go home and work things out with Savannah, he said, "There's not a compromise there that works for me."

I didn't know what that meant, and didn't get a chance to ask because he abruptly stood up at that point and left my room.

Every time I've tried to bring it up since then, I've been met with stony resistance. And when I get a moment alone with Penelope or JJ, when they visit and Derek is out of the house with Charlie, I try to ask them, but they don't have the answers either or they aren't willing to give them up. So I've stopped asking, and have started swallowing my guilt like one of the pills I have to swallow every morning.

He has a pair of running shoes in my entry way closet, I've found one of his shirts and one of his sweatshirts mixed in with our laundry, his headphones are sitting on the breakfast counter in the kitchen, where he left them yesterday, and there are couple of books he's reading on my coffee table.

He never stays the night, but he shows up early every morning and lets himself in. He sits quietly on the couch until Charlie wakes up, and then spends the day with him, and leaves again in the evening after Charlie is asleep. During that time he's with us, he helps out around the house, or takes Charlie to the park or other places, and Claudia stays with me. They both seem a little uneasy at the idea of leaving me unattended since that first night, even though it's now six days later and I'm absolutely fine. Not great, but not all that much different than I felt before chemotherapy.

The Thursday after my first chemotherapy session, he showed up in the morning with a bag of groceries and a juicer. He's apparently been reading some of the same websites I've read, about good diets for people with cancer. I have more green things in my refrigerator than I've ever had before, and I've caught him and Claudia conspiring together over recipes they find online.

The team is around regularly, visiting in ones and twos, and I am just waiting for them to have a case so I can get a break for a few days. Because all of this attention thrown my way is systematically driving me insane.

There have been times when I've felt rage and guilt churning and competing inside me so keenly that the only thing that saved whomever was in front of me from a verbal wrath I'm sure I would have regretted was the fact that Charlie was around. I don't want to scare Charlie again; he'd spent the day after my little middle-of-the-night escapade in the bathroom glued to my side while I reassured him I was okay.

Derek is weeding his way into my home and my life and, if I'm honest, my heart, and I don't like it one bit, but I feel powerless to stop it. I don't feel like I have a right to. I've blown up this man's life and no matter how many walls I try to keep up while he's slowly creeping over them, I'm going to let him put himself back together in a way that works for him.

Being my faithful attendant seems to be what's working for him, for now. I'm not going to give up on pushing him back towards Savannah, where he belongs, though. I'm just giving it a rest for now.

It's the Sunday before my second chemotherapy session, and I'm actually frightened, though doing a good job of hiding it. I'd be okay if I was getting the same drugs as last week, because I'd at least know what to expect, but this time it's new drugs and I actually tremble when I think about it, and when I think about the fact that it's only been one week, I have eleven more to go, and I feel like the past six days have been a lifetime already.

To distract myself, I go with Claudia and Charlie to the park across the street. I play with my sweet son for a little while, but tire long before he does. So, I leave him with Claudia and go back to the house. I bristle when I open the front door and see Derek in the living room folding our laundry; more specifically, folding my underwear, like it's something he does every day.

He looks up and smiles at me and I grit my teeth at him and his smile falls. "Just leave the whites," I hiss.

Then I turn towards the kitchen to get a glass of water. My hands are shaking at the preposterous intimacy I just felt seeing Derek handle a flimsy piece of cotton, something he probably didn't think was more than anything but helping out. The glass slips from my fingers and shatters and Derek comes running in with a look on his face like he's expecting me to be the one who's broken into a thousand pieces. He reaches for the small dustpan and brush under the kitchen sink, and the fact that he knows so well where things are in this house now is my tipping point.

I grab the dustpan and brush from his hands and screech, "I can do it!"

I kneel down and start angrily sweeping the glass up, "I don't want you cleaning my house, I don't want you doing my laundry, I don't want you kissing my forehead when I've fallen asleep before you leave for the night and I don't want you fucking folding my underwear!" I shout.

I'm gasping and the tears are hot and heavy on my cheeks. I keep my head down.

"What do you want?" I hear him ask.

I look up, my voice still raised. "I want you to go home and fix things with Savannah so I don't have to live every damned day feeling like I ruined your life!"

"You haven't ruined my life. What do _you_ want, Emily?"

I'm on a tear, not thinking before speaking, spewing jumbled words I've held in reserve for weeks now, a combination of emotion and bucket list items that have flitted through my head since my diagnosis.

"I want to see Charlie grow up! I want to see him off on his first day of Kindergarten and see him going to his prom, and graduating high school and going to college. I want to be around to teach him to swim and ride a bike and drive a car! I want to go on a roller coaster because I've never been on one. I want to dance in the rain and jump in puddles because I was never allowed to as a kid. I want to eat ice cream for breakfast sometimes instead of a pound of vegetables that have been reduced to an eight ounce glass of juice because every sip only reminds me that I'm sick. I want someone to be in love with me just once in my life. I want to have mind blowing sex. I want to eat chocolate with wild abandon and I want to try rock climbing. I want you to be mad at me. I want the team to be mad at me. I want you all to scream at me like I deserve to be screamed at, and I want to go somewhere where I can scream and no one can hear me. I want to scream every fucking day at the unfairness of this all, and at myself for what I did to you!"

I'm breathing heavily and I realize Derek is no longer standing, but kneeling down in front of me, facing me. "Is that all?" he asks as he reaches out and brushes the tears off my cheeks.

My cheeks are burning in embarrassment at some of the things I just said out loud, but I manage to huff out a small laugh at his question. "You should go home, Derek. Please."

"Savannah doesn't want to be a step mother, and the only way I truly believe she can see herself helping raise Charlie is without you in the picture. I want for you everything you just told me you wanted more than I want to be with a woman who can only love Charlie with conditions. But I'll stop folding your underwear."

He delivers the last sentence with a soft smile, but it's all too much for me, what he just said and what I just said out loud. I nod slightly at him, not knowing what else to do. I excuse myself to my bathroom and take a shower, trying to wash away the tears and everything I'm feeling right now, until I can get some sort of mask in place to get through the rest of the day.

We manage a quiet dinner where I don't really look at Derek, and I fall asleep on the couch before he leaves for the night. I awake to the click of the front door and realize, sadly, that he didn't kiss my forehead before he left.

But the next morning, before I'm supposed to leave for chemotherapy, he shows up not with spinach and kale and carrots and beets, but with chocolate ice cream, milk and bananas. He makes me a milkshake for breakfast. And I smile at him around my straw as I drink it.


	8. Chapter 8

I lay on the grass in the backyard in Manassas, mapping the stars in the in the sky and thinking about life and the choices I've made, and Savannah and Charlie and Emily. But mostly Emily.

I didn't leave her house after her second chemotherapy session, preferring to be right there in case something went wrong. She came home already feverish, from the Bleomycin she was given that day, with a care sheet that I read until I memorized it word for word. I started out on the couch, but found myself waking every hour to check her temperature and make sure it wasn't tipping into the danger zone. Mostly, she slept through that, and sometime around two o'clock in the morning, I laid down next to her on the bed, on top of the covers, watching her sleep with one hand protectively resting on her forehead, until I dozed off.

She woke up at four o'clock in the morning, cognizant enough to whisper, "What are you doing in here?"

I startled fully awake, and was ready to jump out of the bed lest I be the recipient of another verbal rampage about pushing my boundaries, but she smiled softly at me and put my hand back on her forehead. "It feels nice," she murmured before falling asleep again.

I'm glad her eyes were closed, because I think I would have been embarrassed about how hugely and instantly a smile filled my face. I settled my head back down on the pillow; I think I was still smiling just as widely when I drifted off to sleep.

The next day, she was glassy eyed and feverish all day and mostly stayed in bed. I brought Charlie in the room to see her and visit with her when she was awake. They snuggled in the bed together and watched cartoons on her iPad. And that night, there was no pretense. Charlie went to bed, Claudia went to her room, and, pajamas on and thermometer in hand, I laid down in bed next to Emily, on top of the covers again, and rested my cool hand against her burning forehead.

She woke up and stared at me for a good minute, her face unreadable, but she didn't say anything. She closed her eyes slowly and I stayed put. Her fever faded away sometime in the night; when I took her temperature around one o'clock, it was already down to 99.2. At that point I sunk into a deep sleep for the first time in two nights, only to wake just before dawn with her head buried against my chest and one arm flung over my waist.

I panicked, but I didn't want to wake her. I didn't put my arm around, I didn't move my body an inch. I forced myself to keep my breathing slow and even and, eventually, I fell asleep again. I woke up a couple hours later with her out of the bed and the sound of her shower running. My t-shirt was still warm from where her head had been resting against it.

I got off the bed quickly and made my way down the hall to find Claudia giving Charlie breakfast. She smiled at me and patted my arm gently. Claudia had an uncanny ability to communicate a novel with a simple touch and a look; her smile read warmth and appreciation, with just a hint of, 'BEWARE: Emily is going to be twitchy today after you stayed the whole night in her bed.'

Claudia was right, back a couple of weeks ago when we had our first conversation: Emily really is not that difficult to figure out, as long as you're looking.

And twitchy she was. I focused entirely on Charlie, got him out of the house that morning, and went for a run while he was napping. I stayed only until dinner was made. I gave Charlie a hug goodbye and told him now that his mommy was feeling better, I'm sure she was looking forward to putting him to bed that night.

Charlie smiled at that and nodded. I said a casual goodbye to both Claudia and Emily, and I got the hell out of there so Emily could get some space.

I've been out in the backyard of my property ever since, slowly sipping beer and contemplating every aspect of my life right now, realizing that I needed a little space, too.

I'm so lost in thought that I don't hear her pull up or her car door closing; it's only when Penelope Garcia is standing on my back porch that I realize she's there, unexpectedly. I'm actually glad to see her; my mother has been a great source of comfort to me over the phone the past week, but to have someone who knows me so well and who I trust completely to talk to that's there in person, just for me for the moment, feels like something I need.

I raise my arm from where I'm laying on the grass so she sees me, but I don't get up. She makes her way towards me, and sits on the ground next to me. Then she lays back on the grass, mimicking my position, facing up towards the stars with her hands behind her head.

"Case over?" I ask. The team had flown out to Texas late on Sunday night.

"Yep. Bad guy caught, the current woman he had in captivity is alive and going to pull through. The team's flying back now," she says. "What are you out here thinking about?"

"Life," I say back. Then I whisper. "Emily."

I feel her turn her head to look at me, but I keep staring up at the sky. "When do you give yourself a chance to think about Savannah?" she asks, getting right to her point. "You were together for over two years, and I've watched you the past couple of weeks when I've visited Emily's house and talked to you on the phone, and you've thrown yourself into a life with Charlie and Emily without really letting yourself feel the loss of Savannah."

"I know," I reply. "I don't know what to think about that. I feel like any outsider looking in would think I gave up too soon, but I don't feel like that, which makes me feel like an asshole. People tend to think that there has to be a history of misery before the inevitable end, but when you know misery is coming, why wait?"

"You're sure that misery was coming?" Garcia asks.

I turn to look at her. "Yes. I would have felt torn helping Emily if I was still living with Savannah. Every moment I spent at our house wouldn't have been genuine, and Savannah would have felt that. And I would have been trying to let her get to know Charlie, and she would have been waiting for things to settle before she could accept him. When Emily pulls through this, I really don't believe Savannah could handle a shared custody situation. And if, and I hate to say this out loud because there isn't an ounce of me that believes it, but if Emily doesn't make it, I would always know I was with a woman who was only able to love my son because his mother was out of the picture."

I watch a slow tear make a path down Penelope's empathetic and loving face. "And?" she asks.

I blink. Leave it to her to call me on my bullshit. I am quiet for a solid two minutes, looking back up at the sky, with the truth making my heart thrum in my chest. "And, when Emily makes it through, I don't want a shared custody agreement either, and it's not Savannah I see myself with."

I feel Penelope's hand reach out and touch my arm nearest her, pulling it from under my head and placing her hand around mine, holding it. "I think you're the farthest thing from an asshole on the planet, but I think maybe you'd stop feeling like one if you told Savannah the truth. As it stands now, you've left her holding the entire burden of responsibility for why you're no longer together."

I nod my head. I know she's right. I mentally accept the fact that tomorrow morning, when I go to the house to meet Savannah and take care of the bills, I will be honest with her.

Penelope sits up and moves her body closer to mine, moving my arm and resting her head on my shoulder while looking up at the sky with me; it's a move that startles me, but wouldn't have two years ago.

Penelope and I had been affectionate with each other for years, definitely something a little more than best friends, but always platonic. Our relationship is a difficult thing to describe to anyone. We're not like siblings; I could never imagine sharing the verbal volley and banter that I share with Penelope with one of my sisters. I see us more like two opposite-sex best friends might be as children, before puberty and social norms enforced strict boundaries. Except that doesn't make sense either, since children would not speak to each other like we sometimes do.

Whatever it is she and I have, it's unique.

When Savannah came into the picture, a lot of mine and Penelope's affection for each other outside of work fizzled away, by some unwritten acknowledgement that it would neither be understood nor appreciated by Savannah. Hell, it wouldn't be understood by most people outside of the BAU, and they only understand it because they've lived it for so long.

I didn't even realize I missed the ease and comfort we had with each other until that moment. This is an unexpected gift that comes from ending things with Savannah, and something Emily wouldn't even blink at.

I loop my arm around my best friend's shoulder and we look up at the sky together.

"I don't know what it looks like a few months from now, for you or Emily, but I believe with everything in me that she's going to make it, Derek, and you're going to get the time to figure it out," she whispers.

Penelope Garcia has been my touchstone for nearly a decade now. Her advice, whether I've liked hearing it or not, has always been spot on given the circumstance. Though she's not exactly giving me direct advice here, she isn't trying to steer me away from the path I've chosen to take, either; she's jumping in right beside me.

That's more of a salve to my soul than my conscience could ever be on its own.

* * *

I stare at myself in the full-length mirror that's hung on the back of my bathroom door. The loose pants with the drawstring waist that I'm wearing are not like anything I've owned in recent years, but they help hide how thin I am better than the other pants I own, pants that now slip past my hips when I walk more than few steps. I'd sent Claudia off with Garcia the evening before, because I didn't have the energy to go shopping myself, but I needed some new things.

I contemplate myself for just a few seconds more before shrugging an equally loose, summery blouse over my tank top, to help hide the rash and irritation on my arm from one of the chemotherapy drugs I receive.

Three and a half weeks into chemotherapy and I'm now down a total of sixteen pounds since I first started feeling sick when I was in London. I am down to a very unbecoming extra-small on my tall frame; my breasts, which have required some pretty damned supportive bras if I was going to do anything active since puberty, can now be supported just fine in a shelf bra inside a tank top. Not that it matters, not that I'm very active these days at all.

All of this despite the fact that I'm managing to consume enough calories to at least maintain my weight, if not gain weight.

I'm hopeful, though. Hopeful that things are maybe starting to take a turn - my scale has remained consistent for the past three days. Maybe things are starting to work inside my body. So far my blood work looks good. My heart is handling all of this well, as are my lungs, despite one of the drugs potentially causing issues. It's still very early in the game, though.

I put makeup on my face to hide how gaunt I look, if it's possible for a person to look gaunt when her face is puffy from daily Prednisone. My hair actually looks decent, despite the frightful number of strands I found on my pillowcase this morning, and the amount that came out in my brush after my shower.

It's Friday, and, as I'm learning, weekends are my best time. Mondays to Wednesdays are fairly horrible, Thursday is much improved, and by Friday I'm feeling moderately okay. I still exhaust quickly, my taste buds are screwed up, soon I'm going to be bald, and I bruise easily, but I'm hanging in there.

I think this is twenty-five percent my will to live, twenty-five percent forcing myself to be normal for Charlie, twenty-five percent the drugs, and twenty-five percent because of my incredible support system, and most of that is Derek Morgan. I've accepted the fact that they aren't going to get angry with me, and they aren't going to scream. Sometimes I still want to scream, though.

I'm letting Derek get way too close and I'm taking way too much comfort from his presence in my and Charlie's lives, but I don't have the energy to get angry with myself about it. Last week, he stayed at the house on Monday and Tuesday night, and I found myself on Tuesday morning with my body wrapped around his. It freaked me out, but seeing as he acted like nothing was different, it was easy to pretend I felt the same way after a couple of days.

Last Thursday, he wasn't here in the morning when Charlie woke up, because he was meeting Savannah at their house to take care of bills and other things. I don't know what their conversation was like, because he wouldn't talk about it. All I know is that he arrived around ten o'clock that morning, when Claudia and Charlie were at the grocery store. He stepped into the house and he'd clearly been crying, but he didn't say anything. He just wrapped me in a hug like he hadn't seen me in forever, and I hugged him back because this time it seemed like _he_ needed comfort.

I asked him, "What's wrong?" and he responded, "Nothing. It's all going to be okay."

I have no clue what exactly he meant, but it was the first time the sentiment of everything being okay didn't make me want to lash back with a, "How do you fucking know?" Anyway, he seemed to be saying it for his benefit more than mine. So I hugged him for longer than I normally would have or should have and told him I was there if he needed to talk.

This week, because every third week of chemotherapy I go in two days in a row, he stayed Monday through Wednesday night. He stayed on the couch, but I heard him checking on me throughout the night, and I almost - _almost_ \- patted the empty side of my bed and invited him in on a few occasions. But I held myself back.

Instead, I moved things around in my dresser and gave him a couple of drawers for the accumulation of his clothing and other things that are slowly finding permanence in my home. I couldn't be entirely sure, but I'm pretty certain I heard him happily whistling in the kitchen after that, while I was in my bathroom after taking a shower.

Sometimes I just want to beg him to go home, to go back to Savannah, to ride it out and find a way to make Charlie fit in there, because I don't want to leave him as a single father. But I heard him that fateful day in my kitchen after I'd spilled a number of embarrassing wishes to him. Savannah doesn't want to be a step-mother, and Derek wants nothing more than to be Charlie's father. And that's that, according to him.

Sometimes I like to delude myself into thinking that nothing more is going on here except that I'm miraculously getting my friend Derek Morgan back, despite what I did to him. But I know it's far more than that, even if we don't talk about it. Sometimes, with him, it's easy to forget I have cancer, and I want to pull him closer to me; sometimes cancer and my own mortality are on the forefront of my mind, and I want to run and hide from him. But I've got Charlie and an oncologist I've come to trust completely holding me firmly in place.

Last night, Derek kissed my forehead again before he left for the night, for the first time since I blew up at him. And I wasn't even asleep yet, just resting on the couch and reading with eyes wide open.

I sigh in the mirror. I look better than I have in awhile in a lot of ways, with my hair styled instead of pulled sloppily back, and makeup applied, and nice, but loose, clothing on my body. My heart is racing because instead of being here when Charlie woke up this morning, Derek was at Dulles, picking up his mother, and they should be here any minute.

I am completely terrified about the initial response Fran Morgan is going to have towards me, but I'm digging deep to calm my fears and face this head on, because Derek wants it so much. That he wants Charlie to get to know his mother is no surprise. If he'd asked to take Charlie to Manassas, or even Chicago, for the weekend so they could spend it all together, it would have been hard for me, but I would have granted him that request in a heartbeat.

Instead, he requested something much more difficult for me, something that included both me and Charlie. He wanted to bring Fran here. He wanted to put her up in a hotel for the weekend that was a five minute cab ride or a twenty minute walk away from this house, so she had the freedom to come and go without relying on him for a fifty minute ride back to the house in Manassas, if she wanted some downtime and he wanted to stay.

What I want is for her reactions and feelings about me to be genuine, not concealed because she feels sorry for me because I look so sick. So I'm trying not to look sick, and I've done the best job I can possibly do, given what I have to work with.

In a lot of ways, this is harder for me than seeing Derek for the first time and telling him about Charlie, because with Derek, I had only kept Charlie from him. This time, I'm going to be seeing a woman from whom I've kept her grandson, with the addition of hurting her only son.

Claudia knocks on the bathroom door and calls through it, "They just pulled up."

I open the door and find Claudia there with an excited Charlie who has been told about his other grandmother and can't wait to meet her. But all thoughts are lost when they get a look at me.

"Mummy!" Charlie exclaims happily when he sees me, like he hasn't seen me in a very long time. And it's true, he hasn't seen me quite like this in about a month. It flits through my head that this is nearly the last hurrah for my hair.

"You look lovely," says Claudia, blinking back the atypical tears in her eyes.

I smile and pull Charlie into my arms and we're just making our way into the living room when Derek opens the front door.

Charlie cries out excitedly, "Daddy!" and wiggles to get out of my arms. I set him down and watch him run into Derek's arms.

"Grandma?" Charlie asks Fran from the safety of Derek's arms.

Fran chokes back a sob and nods. Charlie leans towards her and is comfortable in her arms in an instant.

And I get the very last thing I ever expected at this initial re-introduction to Fran Morgan. My son is in her arms and she is hugging him, and she is looking right at me with tears dripping down her face in a torrent.

She smiles at me and mouths, "Thank you."


	9. Chapter 9

My mother brought my baby book with her. She sat on the floor with Charlie in her lap and showed him pictures of me as a baby and toddler. Charlie kept looking from the pictures to me, like he was understanding my mother telling him that the baby in the picture was me, but he couldn't quite believe it.

She couldn't stop smiling at Charlie, I smiled at them both, Claudia hung out in her room and gave us space, and Emily sat stiffly on the couch, looking both frightened and emotionally overwhelmed, blinking rapidly and licking her lips frequently.

Mom delivered several compliments, about what an obviously wonderful mother Emily was, about how well Charlie spoke, about how wonderful he was. Emily nodded at these statements, and swallowed with difficulty. And, finally, my mom stood from the floor and went to sit beside Emily on the couch. She patted Emily's knee and Emily managed a small smile. My mom grinned back and then pulled Emily into a careful, gentle hug.

"Human beings make mistakes, Emily. They do things that are wrong and make bad decisions every day. The fortunate ones are the the ones who find the strength and get the time to right those wrongs. It took a lot of courage for you to come here. You could have stayed in London, but you didn't. You keep looking at me like you're expecting me to get angry with you, but I'm not going to do that. So stop it."

All of those words were delivered with my mother's chin resting on Emily's shoulder, while Emily sat in stunned silence. But at that last sentence, Emily laughed quietly, and then she hugged my mother back.

That was yesterday, and my mother stayed at the house all day with me, perfectly content. She stayed while Emily napped, she stayed while we made lunch and dinner, she insisted on doing the dishes. She stayed until we crept out of the house quietly because Emily had fallen asleep while we were putting Charlie to bed. Her visit wasn't just about Charlie and me. She was there to experience the life I'd chosen, the life I was currently living, in all of its confusing, beautiful ambiguity.

This morning my mom was waiting outside of her hotel when I pulled up, eagerly looking forward to taking Charlie to the zoo, and to the zoo we went.

There is something magical about spending the day with my mother and my son, something that makes me feel like so much more of an adult, and also feel like a child myself again. Maybe that's what children do for you; they make you grow up and allow you to access your inner child all at the same time.

When Charlie sees a new animal in the distance and runs towards it, I find myself running, too, not merely to keep up with him, but because his innocence and exuberance is contagious.

Over lunch, my mother grins at me and then laughs. "He runs like you used to," she says. "You would keep me and your father on our toes, and I loved every minute of it. But I love this even more. Seeing you as a father is the most wonderful thing I've ever experienced."

We share a look that we've perfected throughout the decades, the mutual, wistful look in our eyes, the lips that briefly turn into a frown before settling back into a small smile, the brief remembrance of his face - the look that says, _I wish your/my father was here to see this_ , without having to say it out loud.

When we get back to Emily's, I notice Penelope's car parked on the curb. We enter the house and I see a printer that wasn't there before on a small table in the living room, and papers and scissors scattered about. Emily, JJ, Claudia and Penelope are sitting on the floor, eating ice cream in the middle of the mess.

Charlie is asleep in my arms, and Claudia stands to take him from me so he can go nap in his bed.

"What's all this?" I ask Emily.

Emily stands up and goes straight to my mother, a photo album in her hand. "I've kept almost everything digital, but I thought you'd like this more, so we made it today," she says to my mom. "A baby book. Charlie's baby book, with all the important dates and pictures. So you can keep in on the shelf next to Derek's."

My mom takes the book in one hand and reaches up to gently run her fingers across Emily's cheek. I watch my mom flip open the book to the first page and I realize some of these pictures are different than the ones on my flash drive. Those pictures, which I've looked at several times since I first received them, were all seemingly taken by Emily. I can see her hand or arm in some of them, but they are mostly just Charlie.

The pictures I'm seeing right now must have been taken by Claudia or someone else. There's Emily in a hospital bed holding a newborn Charlie. Something about the look on her face makes my heart seize up.

I feel like I'm operating outside of my body. I gently reach over and take the book from my mom's hands and sink into the closest chair. I realize the room has fallen completely silent, but I don't look up - my eyes are transfixed on the radiant, healthy woman I'm staring at - Emily as a mother, before she was sick.

I flip through the pages. Some of the pictures I recognize. But there, on the page about "Baby's First Smile," is a picture that's new to me. Charlie laying on the floor and Emily with her head tipped towards his, their noses nearly touching, both of them with huge smiles on their faces.

I find these gems throughout the book, and I am heartbroken for the first time not because of what I've missed with Charlie, but what I've missed with Emily - that I never got to see her in person, looking truly healthy, happy and energetic with our son.

I trace my finger over the look on her face in one picture before I look up and find her and my mother both staring at me, and it's only then that I realize a few tears are on my cheeks.

"I can make you one like that, too," Emily says softly.

I shake my head. Not caring that we have an audience, I look her right in the eye. "I _will_ see you like this with Charlie, in person. You're going to get well, and I'm going to get to see _this_ Emily with our son," I say gently, but firmly, as I point to one of the pictures of her with Charlie.

Her cheeks flush in embarrassment that this has been spoken in front of other people. Whatever emotional merry-go-round we've been riding with each other, it's been done mostly in private, until now.

But she keeps her eyes locked with mine and nods.

For the first time, I have mentioned her making it and she's not pushing back with hesitancy. She nods firmly at me and smiles slightly before clearing her throat and turning away, busying herself with cleaning up the scraps of paper around the room. Penelope and JJ start helping her, and my mother moves to stand beside me. She puts her hand on my shoulder and kisses my head and we both look at the picture of Emily with a smile that could light up a room, her arms stretched wide as she waits for a one-year-old Charlie to walk to her on unsteady legs.

Emily excuses herself for a nap shortly after that, Penelope and JJ leave, and I take my mom back to her hotel so she can rest for a couple of hours before dinner. The house is quiet when I return, and I figure Claudia is probably reading in her room, which she's been doing a lot lately, when Charlie sleeps and I'm in the house.

I go straight to Emily's room and lift the chair that resides in one corner, placing it next to her bedside. I watch her sleep, which has become a comforting, if somewhat creepy, habit of mine. I watch her face and try to find the woman in there that I saw in those pictures. It's very difficult to do, but I stare until her face blurs around the edges and I can catch a glimpse of the Emily I once knew.

I stay there, lost in thought, for well over an hour. I notice when a tear leaks from under her eyelid in her sleep. I know she's dreaming; I've been tempted to ask her what her dreams are about, but somehow I don't think she'd tell me.

I hear Charlie wake up, and that wakes Emily up. She no longer looks startled when she discovers me watching her while she's been sleeping.

"Promise me," I say in a whisper. "Promise me I'll get to see you like that, like how you were with him before all of this."

I know deep down it's a promise she can't keep with one hundred percent certainty, but I desperately need to hear it. I want her fighting for that promise as much as she's fighting for Charlie and herself.

"I promise," she whispers back. And then she gives me something more than I could have hoped for. "And I won't go back to London."

I stand from the chair, a smile splitting my face. I reach forward, and for the first time in over three years, I run my fingers through her hair.

And a large chunk comes out in my hand.

* * *

I never thought I'd be the type to shave my head as a preemptive strike towards the inevitable. I've read blogs online of women who have done so, and I've also read that there is a lot of emotional benefit to it. I still couldn't see myself doing it; I fully intended to hang onto my hair until there wasn't any hair left. That was until it started coming out in chunks, the first chunk in Derek's gentle hand the day before.

He's just left to take his mom back to the airport and won't be coming back this evening. Fran Morgan is one of the best human beings I've ever had the pleasure of getting to know; I see where Derek gets it from now. I'll miss her and Charlie will miss her, but I know she'll be back soon.

I stare at my hair that looked decent on Friday morning. I expected a slow thinning to my hair starting at about week two of chemotherapy, and instead I got this - nearly four weeks where my body hung on to its hair and then started letting go in one fell swoop.

It's late Sunday afternoon now, and I have several large areas of missing hair where I can see right to my scalp. My eyebrows and eyelashes are figments of what they used to be. And when my doctor told me I should be prepared to lose all of my hair, he meant _all._ There's some sad irony in the fact that it's summer, and if I wouldn't look so frightfully thin and awful in a swimsuit, for the first time in forever I need neither to shave or wax to be swimsuit ready.

As soon as I hear Charlie wake up from his nap, I go and get him. I sit on the edge of my bed and hold his still-sleepy body in my arms, remembering how when he was a baby, he'd twine and twirl his fingers through my hair.

I rock my body back and forth and hold him until I feel him pick his head up from my shoulder, fully awake. Every part of this journey so far has included Derek, but I want this for just me and Charlie. For as close as I've let Derek get, this feels oddly private. Plus, I know if Derek's there, or even Claudia, I'll cry. And I don't want this to be marred by tears.

It just is.

Claudia is at the store, so the time is right. I pull back so I can look at Charlie's face. "Guess what? It's that time when the medicine I'm taking is making my hair fall out. You see here and here?"

I point and Charlie shifts so he's standing on the bed and can get a good look. I feel his fingers touching my scalp. He tilts his head so he's looking at my face again.

"It looks rather silly, doesn't it?" I ask and then make a face.

Charlie laughs at the look on my face.

"Soon it's all going to fall out, but since it looks silly now, I was thinking of just cutting it off. Would you like to help me?"

His eyes are wide, and I know he doesn't totally get what's about to happen, but he nods.

I carry him to the bathroom and stand him on the counter. I pick up a pair of scissors I placed there. I put his little fingers in the handles and then I place mine over his. I hold one section of hair out and guide the scissors close to my scalp. We cut.

Charlie looks almost shocked at the long strands of hair that fall away from my head. I keep the scissors moving and start talking. "We'll go shopping in a couple of days. You can help me pick out some hats, maybe some scarves."

"A hat?" he asks.

I nod. "A few hats, I think."

I can't even fathom a wig in this east coast humidity and heat.

Charlie pulls his fingers away and I let him let go of the scissors. He stands on the counter and stares at me as I cut all of my remaining hair close to my scalp. He stoops at one point and gathers a handful of my hair in his hands and that is almost my undoing. I take a deep breath to combat the tears I feel sting my eyes, and smile at him. I make another silly face.

"This is the fun part," I say to Charlie. "This is your Daddy's razor. Since he left it here, I figure we might as well put it to good use. Do you want to help?"

Charlie shakes his head, and just watches. I smile at him. "It's okay. It's going to look different, but it's okay, Charlie."

I turn on the razor and shave everything off, using my hands to feel for areas I might have missed. When it's all done and I survey myself in the mirror, all I can think is at least I have a decently shaped head.

Charlie steps closer to me and kisses my head. "Like my book, Mummy."

"Yep," I say. Then I make another silly face. He just stares and stares, but then he smiles at me.

"Ready for a snack?" I ask, like nothing sad or monumental just occurred. Like it's just any other day, which is what I want him to think even if there isn't a fiber of my being that believes it at that moment.

Charlie nods.

* * *

I've started referring to Monday as "Milkshake Days." It's now how I send Emily off to chemotherapy, and today I feel a little celebratory flair in me: It's week four and we're one-third of the way through. Except on this Monday, when I walk in the front door, Emily's standing there looking shy, a little sad and a little apprehensive. She's completely bald.

At first I'm hurt that she made the choice to do that when I wasn't here, but I know that's ridiculous. It was going to happen on its own soon enough, and she probably came to that conclusion when I wasn't here yesterday evening.

I get over myself quickly and smile without missing too much of a beat. "You are damned sexy for a bald woman," I say. I don't know where it came from but those are the brilliant words that escape my mouth.

Her eyes open as big as saucers and then her lips start twitching, and finally she's laughing. "Say that again with a straight face," she replies.

I could say that with a straight face a million times over, but I merely smirk and say nothing back. I head to the kitchen with my supplies. This time, I've decided on a peach milkshake. She's been enjoying peaches a lot lately.

I can hear Claudia helping Charlie get dressed from the down the hall, and I start putting ingredients into the blender. Suddenly, Emily is there beside me, leaning against the counter, trying to catch my eyes, a folder in her hand that she's trying to give me.

At first I think it's maybe some printed pictures. I wipe my hands on a dish towel and take the folder. It takes me a few seconds to look at the three pages and understand what I'm looking at. They're official UK government documents, and they keep referring to a birth registration, not a certificate, which is what throws me for a bit.

"I think it's about time you get yourself on Charlie's birth registration, don't you? Once that's done, we can see about getting him a US birth certificate."

In my hand is one paper already filled out by Emily that will get my name on that birth registration. The second form is blank, something I need to fill out to declare myself as Charlie's biological father. And the third is an application to change Charlie's last name from Prentiss to Morgan.

I look at Emily and touch her bald head for the first time, running my fingers reverently over the soft skin there, then I lean forward and kiss her forehead, letting my lips linger for a few seconds longer than I normally would.

I pull back, place the first two pieces of paper on the counter, and take the third sheet of paper, crumpling it up. I toss it in the garbage can in the corner of the kitchen.

"I _do_ want my name on the birth registration, but I've got no problem with Charles Prentiss, Emily. The world has already had a Charles Morgan, and he was one of the best men ever to grace this planet. And Charlie Prentiss is going to be the same."

Emily looks at me, tilting her head slightly to try and read if I really mean it. Then she steps forward brushing slightly against my body so she can reach up and kiss my cheek gently. Her arms wrap around me in a warm hug. "Derek Morgan is pretty wonderful, too," she whispers in my ear.


	10. Chapter 10

I run my thumb along the wood grain of the banister at the house I once shared with Savannah while Savannah sits at the dining room table, staring at me. The banister was the last project I completed on the house, two weeks after we moved in together. The wood is solid mahogany, and I purchased it for way more than I should have at a demolition auction. The home that was slated to come down, with a foundation that was unfixable, was built in the mid 1800s, and though no one could be sure, the wood for the banister likely came from England. It was easy to see that it had been carefully hand carved and sanded, long before the days of power tools. A lot of labor went into its creation, and a lot of labor went into me fitting it onto the staircase at this house. It was by far the best project I've ever completed.

I made the extravagant purchase because I could see something that unique and beautiful in my home. And now there's a realtor upstairs taking pictures so we can get this house on the market.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Savannah asks softly.

I grip the wood at the bottom of the banister and nod my head. I had told Savannah that if she wanted to keep the house, we could figure out a payment option that worked for both of us, so she didn't have to buy me out all out once, but she looked at me like I was crazy.

I love this place, but I can't live here anymore.

"What about our things? How do you want to divide them up?" she asks. She's been very business-like so far today.

I look towards the living room. When we first moved in and combined the furniture from each of our apartments, I remember I felt content, like I was making the right decision - our furniture seemed to fit together in the space. Now I'm looking at it and seeing an incongruent jumble of things that were never meant to be paired together. I start to reply, and my voice cracks, so I clear my throat and try again. "You can move out first. Take what you'll need or you want. I'll deal with what's left," I say in what I hope is a friendly voice.

Her response is a deafening silence, and then a few sniffles. "Are you and Emily still _good friends?"_ is her biting response a minute later.

I turn to look at her. "Yes," I say. It's not quite the truth. The honest answer would be that I don't know what Emily and I are, but that response would only lead to more questions that I can't answer, and I don't think Savannah really wants to know anyway.

My thumb goes back to the smooth mahogany, and I brush it gently, remembering how the night before, as I laid next to Emily while she burned with her second night of chemotherapy-induced fever, I moved my hand from her forehead while she was sleeping. I brushed my thumb lightly over her eyelid, and the last few eyelashes she was holding onto came away on my thumb.

While she slept, I closed my eyes and made the biggest wish of my life, and blew those eyelashes away.

"But you're hoping in the near future it will be more than that," Savannah says, like she wants to clarify this point yet again.

It's a comment, not a question, and I can tell she tried to soften her tone before the sentence ended, but her words drip with hurt and barely controlled anger. This is mostly how she's spoken to me on the occasions that we've talked ever since I owned up to the reality that our end was as much my choice and responsibility as hers.

I turn fully around to face her. "Right now, I'm just hoping for any near future that includes Emily, in whatever capacity, at all."

She looks down at that remark, and I can see she's barely holding back tears. I sigh. "I'm not sorry about the past two years, and a part of me will always miss you," I say. And that's honest, too. We had many more good times than bad, and I loved her, and a part of me still does, but not the part that wants to keep me here. My heart is already miles away from this house; to be exact, it's thirty-one-point-two miles away from this house, in Bethesda.

Savannah stands from the table, her movements slow and resigned, not angry. She's in scrubs and ready to head back to work. "I've signed what I need to. We'll check in after the open house this weekend, I guess."

Her eyes blink rapidly and I know she wants to get out of here before she falls apart, so I nod. "Sounds good."

She closes the front door softly behind her, and moments later the realtor starts walking down the stairs. "I think that's everything," she says with a bright smile.

"Not quite," I say. "Make sure that any prospective buyers know that this banister is not part of the deal. I'll come by sometime next week to take it down, and will pay to replace it with whatever the new owner wants."

Her eyebrows shoot up. "The banister?" she asks, like no one has ever requested such a thing in all her years doing this job, and it's likely they never have. But I am. That banister is going to end up in a home - my home - even if it can't be this one. That banister represents a long journey, back-breaking work, and a lot of mistakes and do-overs to get to the ultimate, beautiful finished product. And it's coming with me.

"Yes, the banister," I say firmly. I'll need a storage area for furniture anyway, and I'll store it there until I can use it.

"Okay, then," she says.

I nod. "I really need to get going."

We walk out together and I get in my car without another look back at the house. I feel both sadder and more free than I have in weeks, but I focus on the free part. I dial Penelope.

"At your service," she answers cheerfully.

"Do you have any connections at Six Flags?" I ask.

"The amusement park in Maryland?" she questions.

"That would be the one," I respond.

"No connections that I know of. Why?" She asks, sounding completely confused.

"Because Emily's never ridden a roller coaster and she wants to, but she can't stand crowds right now."

"Ahh," she says softly. "Sometimes it's not who you know that gets you what you want, it's what you can find out about someone. Let me see what I can do. I'll get back to you." She pauses for a second, but before I can say goodbye, she whispers, "You could never be an asshole, Derek Morgan."

I need the reminder today.

I disconnect with her and turn my car away from Bethesda. I'll be there soon enough, but I need to make a little detour first, to a small chocolate shop in Springfield, Virginia that's touted as one of the best.

For a little over three weeks, my only acknowledgement to the bucket list Emily sobbed out from a knelt position on her kitchen floor was to bring ice cream and make milkshakes on occasion. But there was far more on her list, and it's time to get to work, not because I believe she'll die, but because I've finally absorbed the lesson that life is precious and possibly short, and life, love and time waits for no one.

* * *

Derek has started leaving chocolates around the house for me to find. These aren't Hershey's Kisses or M&Ms. These are foil-wrapped pieces of chocolate that are so good they literally melt in your mouth. And they are shaped like characters, with a foil design on the packaging to match. There's always one on the pillow next to me when I wake up in the mornings. The rest are hidden in random places that always make me smile and then laugh, and sometimes cry.

The first day he did this, I found a little foil-wrapped garden gnome chocolate on the shelf in my shower. I've since found a piece wrapped and shaped like a mushroom in my t-shirt drawer, a few pieces here and there in my purse or my car. The other night I picked up the remote to turn on the TV and it wouldn't go on; it took me a second to realize the batteries were on the TV stand, and when I opened the back of the remote, there was a little chocolate frog in the battery compartment.

Today he's taking me somewhere, but I don't know where. It's Thursday morning, and I'm on the upswing in terms of energy and how I feel after my fifth chemotherapy appointment. He told me to dress comfortably, assured me I wouldn't get too tired, and said we'd be gone only for a couple of hours at most.

I stand in front of the full length mirror in my bathroom after my shower and survey myself. I've almost gotten used to how I look completely hairless, not that I like it at all, but I've stopped scaring myself when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The rest of my body still horrifies me, though. I've got little bruises on my arms and legs, I've got a red rash that spans my left arm from wrist to nearly my shoulder, my skin stretches over my hip bones in a way that looks almost painful, and I'm just looking forward to the day that I can no longer count every single one of my ribs.

I'm fairly certain Derek's plan here is to take me through that embarrassing list of desires I blurted out into a dustpan of broken glass over a month ago, which scares me more than my emaciated body does. So far he's given me ice cream, chocolate and his love, though the latter has not been spoken out loud. It doesn't have to be.

Being loved like he's loving me, with the utmost care and respect, and nothing much in terms of being physical, is a terrifying misnomer to anything else I've felt in my life when I think about love. It's starting to feel real and hopeful and like everything I've ever walled myself away from with sarcasm and a brash exterior.

 _This is what happens when you're too tired for your walls and snappy words, Emily_ , my inner voice tells me frequently.

It's true, and I should be keeping him pushed further away. Letting him get this close and willingly tiptoeing on this fragile path with him is only going to make it harder if this all goes to shit; if my body completely goes to shit and I die.

My dreams of Helios and his sun chariot still haunt me, they've merely shifted. There's always room for me next to Charlie and Derek now, but most of the time I'm too weak, scared or self-deprecating to climb on board. The reality is that no matter how he's been treating me, I still don't believe I deserve an ounce of his care after what I did to him. It's just that most days I'm too damned exhausted to fight it.

I sigh and turn towards my medicine cabinet, opening it to retrieve my deodorant. There on the shelf sits a foil-covered chocolate heart. I smile and shake my head, and start getting ready for this little surprise adventure of his. The only thing I know with certainty is that it's not going to be the mind-blowing sex or the rock climbing - the former because there is no way in hell anyone is seeing my body like this and even if I'd allow that, we're nowhere near that point yet and I'm not sure I could follow through even if we were there; the latter because the last time my arms were able to lift more than Charlie was over two months ago.

Fifteen minutes later, Derek is in the living room and ready to go. We hug and kiss Charlie goodbye and wave to Claudia. I grab a sun hat and we are out the door.

Ten minutes into the drive, I see the first signs for Six Flags and know we're after a roller coaster. I grin, but don't say anything.

Twenty minutes later, I see the tall rides just a short way in the distance and look at my watch. It's only eight-thirty. I reach over and touch Derek's arm. "Are they even open yet?"

He grins at me. "They are for us."

I sit quietly, excited and curious. I watch him bypass every exit for the public parking lots and turn a corner. We pull into the staff parking lot and are waved into a space. I turn back towards him and raise one non-existent eyebrow. "Penelope?"

Derek laughs. "Don't ask me how she managed it, because I decided I didn't want to know."

I smile and laugh, then sober quickly. I don't want to spoil this, but I have some concerns. "Don't you get knocked around a lot? I bruise so easily," I whisper, hating to admit my own fragility out loud.

"I think I've got it covered, but if we get there and you're not up for it, we'll skip it and go get pancakes or something. Chocolate chip pancakes," he says with a wink.

He exits the car and I follow along. I watch him open his trunk and retrieve a mysterious duffel bag. He closes the trunk, slings the bag over his shoulder and reaches for my hand. "A man named Alan is supposed to meet us right here any minute now."

I hear him, but the only thing I can sense is the feel of his fingers linked with mine. I look down at the connection, at his very bold gesture out here in public. I look over and see some rides moving, likely going through their safety inspections before the park officially opens. I squeeze his fingers. Seconds later a cart pulls up and a young man smiles and asks, "Derek Morgan?"

His voice sounds slightly nervous, and I can only imagine what Penelope must have done to pull this off for us, but we get into the cart and moments later, we're at the entrance to a large roller coaster. I look up and then back at Derek.

I laugh giddily, because I'm excited, and because he's here with me and doing this with me. We make the walk up the exit, which he tells me is shorter than the long, winding path of the regular entrance line. When we arrive on the decking next to the cart, Derek drops the duffel bag and unzips it. He takes out an oblong piece of fluffy sheepskin and lays it so it's cushioning one of the two seats at the front of the cart.

He turns to look at me. "Hop in."

I don't know how much hopping I'm capable of in that moment, because I'm frantically blinking back tears at the amazing man who is smiling at me. But I manage the walk and sit down. It feels soft and my hips and back are completely protected from the hard plastic of the seat. Next he lays a piece of foam over my chest before pulling the bar over my head and locking it in place against the foam.

"OK?" he asks.

I nod and reach up to wipe my eyes. I smile at him. "It's okay."

He grins and reaches forward, gently removing my hat so it doesn't fly off. He tosses it next to the duffel bag. "Then let's do this."

Derek sits next to me and pulls the bar over his head and against his chest. He links his fingers with mine again. "We're doing this with our hands up, Emily Prentiss. If we're going for it, let's go for it totally."

I turn to glance at him, absorbing the many meanings of his words, but he's merely smiling excitedly at me. I grin back and nod.

"Go for it, Alan," Derek calls out.

And we're off, like we were shot out of a cannon. We are whipping through the cool morning air, up and down, upside down on corkscrews and loops. Derek keeps his hand in mine and we raise our arms up. I scream and laugh and cry, and it's over way too soon.

I'm disappointed when the cart returns to the loading area and slows down, but Derek turns to look at me. "Again?" he asks.

I laugh joyfully and nod at him. "Again."

Even though I know it's going to be short-lived, it's the first time I haven't felt sick since June.

I don't stop holding his hand after our second ride on the roller coaster. I hold it as we get out of the cart and as we walk down the path. I decline the ride in the cart and tell Derek I'd rather walk back to the car, but I don't dawdle. The park is just opening and I'd like to get out of there before the crowds converge.

I can't stop smiling and laughing or telling Derek, "Thank you." When we reach the car he turns my body so it's leaning against the car door. He steps in front of me, close enough that I can feel the heat of his body even if I can't actually feel the solidness of him. "Thank _you,_ " he whispers.

He doesn't say for what, but he also doesn't need to. I can see it all in his eyes. He's thanking me for letting him in, for letting him do this for me, for me telling him what I wanted, for laughing and smiling and holding his hand.

His eyes shift between my eyes and my lips and I'm still caught up in a euphoria that is preventing me from taking the time to rationalize my way out of this. I nod my head, barely, but he catches it and immediately moves his lips towards mine.

That's when I feel it, just when his lips are a breath away from mine, something warm running out of my nose. He sees it before his eyes completely close and pulls back. I reach my hand up and wipe at the blood on my upper lip. I pinch my nose and shrug, disappointed and embarrassed. I knew this could happen; I am well read on this topic. My platelets are probably a little low, the turning upside down on the roller coaster was probably pushing the envelope, and this is just like the bruises on my legs. I'm supposed to have a blood test tomorrow and I'll know. It's a real mood killer, though, and I feel bad for ruining our perfect moment.

And then, the trickle out of my nose stops. It turns into a full-force faucet, and there is blood gushing out of my nose, nothing that my fingers pinching could stop. Derek's eyes are immediately frightened, and mine, I'm sure, reflect the same sentiment.

I'm in his car with my seat belt around me before I can even comprehend how it happened so quickly. I sit there and pinch my nose and gag on the backwash of blood. I feel it falling down my lips and chin and dripping into a warm, sticky puddle on my shirt.

* * *

I pace in the waiting room at Johns Hopkins.

It took me about three seconds to rationalize that the fastest path to that hospital and Emily's doctor was in my car. Watching her with blood gushing out of her nose as I drove was terrible; watching the fear leave her face and a numb, absent look replace it was almost too much for me. But I pushed well beyond the speed limit and got her to the emergency room faster than any ambulance could have come to the amusement park and gotten her there.

I carried her in my arms into the ER, and she was immediately taken back to an exam room. I called Claudia to let her know what happened, and I asked Claudia to call Emily's mom. Everyone else could wait. The team was on a case, Penelope couldn't be here even if I really wanted her to be, and there was no use worrying them all until I knew more.

So I pace. It's been just about an hour when a doctor comes into the waiting room. "Mr. Morgan?" he calls out.

I turn and nod. He smiles at me. "Dr. McKenzie," he says while holding out his hand. "I'm Emily's oncologist. She's okay, even though I know that was scary. We got the bleeding stopped, but her heart was racing. She's sedated and sleeping now. Her platelets plummeted this past week, which sometimes happens. We're going to give her a platelet transfusion. That should take about an hour, and then we'll observe her for a few more hours. If everything goes well, she should be home by dinner."

"But what does it mean?" I ask.

"It's a side effect of chemotherapy, unfortunately. It doesn't mean things aren't working. In fact, her blood tests indicate that everything is working just like it should be. This is just a blip, but I'm sure it was a frightening one."

I nod, relieved, but my heart is still knocking around in my chest with adrenaline and fear.

"Would you like to go back and sit with her? We'll let you know if there's anything else, where you might need to make medical decisions while she's asleep, but I highly doubt that will be necessary."

I stop moving. "Why would I make medical decisions?"

Dr. McKenzie holds up a piece of paper. "You're her medical power of attorney."

I look at the paper and see the date. Emily signed this on July nineteenth, the day _before_ she met me for coffee and told me about Charlie. I don't say anything; I'm worn down and confused. I follow Dr. McKenzie back into the ER and am led to a private, curtained room. Emily is asleep in the bed.

I sit in a chair next to her. I've sat like this, while she's slept, more times than I can count in the past several weeks, but this feels different. We're in a hospital and everything is amplified.

I hold her hand and wait, watch as a doctor comes in and hooks up an IV bag of a cloudy fluid. I don't doze, I don't look away from her face or stop holding her hand, I'm not even sure if I blink. When her eyes open a couple of hours later, mine are dry and raw.

"Hey," I say softly as I stand. "How are you feeling?"

She stares at me. "I'm sorry," she whispers.

"For what? It was time to get my car detailed anyway," I say with a smile.

She lifts her lips slightly and squeezes my hand.

"You'll get out of here soon. You already got your platelet transfusion and it went just fine. They just want to observe you for a few more hours."

She nods, her eyes still on mine, but seemingly unable to say anything.

"Emily, how come you chose me for your medical power of attorney? I mean, I could understand it now, but you signed that before we even talked."

Her eyes glance away from mine and down. She mumbles something so softly that I can only catch syllables and vowels, but no actual words.

"What's that?" I ask.

She looks up at me, tears in her eyes. "Because I trusted you the most to not give up on me too soon."

It's a huge admission for her, and my heart that has gone from excitement to exhilaration to nervousness and then blind fear today yields to a different emotion. It literally feels like it's melting and remolding itself into something better because of the undeniable connection I have with the woman laying down in front of me.

I bend to kiss her forehead, then I kiss each of her eyes, before gently brushing my lips against her nose. I'm just about to touch her lips when she turns her head slightly. I catch the edge of her lips and her cheek. I pull back, hurt and confused.

Her hand is on my cheek in an instant and she's smiling at me. "Not like this. If this happens, I don't want the memory of it to be in a hospital," she whispers.

The _if_ stings, but I try not to show it. She seems to realize it just a fraction of a second later. She touches my cheek again and traces her finger over my lips. " _When_ this happens, I don't want the memory of it to be in a hospital."

I let out the breath I feel like I've been holding since we were in the parking lot at the amusement park. I sink back into my chair and kiss the back of her hand several times, and she doesn't pull away. When I rest my cheek on the edge of her bed, her free hand reaches over and rests on top of head.


	11. Chapter 11

The only time Derek and I slept together, I spent the whole night with my cheek against his naked chest and my arm wrapped around him. We both woke up in a panic when we heard the sound of keys in the front door of my flat, signalling that Penelope had returned. My head was pounding with a hangover, and Derek moved quickly to gather his clothing and get to his room.

Just before he exited, even though he was cutting it way too close, he ran back towards my bed. He didn't say anything, he didn't kiss me on my lips. Instead, he bent his head lower and planted a soft kiss between my breasts, over my heart. I watched his naked backside scurry away and the pounding in my head was completely erased in that moment by the pounding in my heart; the only thing I could feel was the remembrance of his lips pressed on my chest for a brief moment.

I remember touching myself there after he left the room. I remember feeling like my skin was on fire. I remember being completely overwhelmed and paranoid by what had occurred in that bedroom the night before, and then I remember letting it go, consoling myself with the fact that I'd never really have to face it because in twenty-four hours, Derek would be on a plane back to DC.

We spoke on the phone a few times the first couple of weeks after he flew home, but the conversations weren't smooth and easy like our conversations usually were. We dodged around anything personal, and our discourse fizzled into something that was really nothing more than _have a good day._

He tried to call a couple of times after I found out I was pregnant, but I didn't - couldn't - answer the phone. I responded to those calls with impersonal emails, and eventually he moved on with his life and stopped calling me, which was a relief and heartbreaking at the same time.

As my stomach grew, I would lay naked in my bed, one hand on my baby bump, and my other hand over my chest, holding onto the ghost memory of how his lips felt against my skin. I'd talk to Derek sometimes, in the dark and privacy of my bedroom. "Our baby's kicking tonight," I'd whisper with my hand pressed over my heart, like there might be some sort of telepathic lifeline there and he would pick up on what I was saying even though we were an ocean apart, and he would magically show up at my door, braving and battling his way towards me when I was too scared to try and get to him.

That never happened, obviously. But he's braving and battling his way towards me now, and I'm just trying to hang in there with him.

After my platelet transfusion, Derek brought me home. That was last Thursday. It's now Wednesday - the very early morning hours of Wednesday - and Derek hasn't gone back to Manassas yet. And he hasn't been sleeping on my couch. He sleeps platonically on top of my sheets and comforter, beside me in the bed, with just a throw blanket over his own body.

A low platelet count and a platelet transfusion is about as pleasant as chemotherapy; I was pretty much wasted for the weekend, and then it was time for chemotherapy again. I've been despondent and doing my best to fight depression - my platelet count is still low, so now I'll be going to chemotherapy on Mondays and getting a platelet transfusion on Wednesdays and Saturdays, until my levels go up. Whereas before I was fairly miserable for half the week, but relatively okay the other half, now I'm pretty much going to be feeling awful seven days a week, for an indeterminate amount of time.

I doze on and off all day, every day, and I've been sleeping about twelve hours a night. When I wake up, either from a nightmare in the middle of the night, or because it's morning, I'm always on my side of the bed, and Derek is always on his, the only physical connection between us is a finger or two of his resting gently against my hand. But I'm pretty positive that this is not how I sleep all night. I think I probably creep closer to him. I think I press my body along his and rest my head against his shoulder or chest. I think this because sometimes when I wake in the middle of the night, I do so because I feel like I've just been moved, and my cheek is several degrees warmer than it would feel if it had only been resting on my pillow.

It's like my core is a ferrous metal, and he is a powerful magnet; I am drawn to him because in my unconscious state, I simply don't have any other choice and no where else I want to be.

I know he's pushing me away because he doesn't want me to freak out come morning. The further we get away from that almost kiss, the more uncertainty I can read in his expression, and the more uncertain I become about the whole thing. I still fight with myself about taking more from Derek than I deserve, and I struggle with those walls of mine. When I've been awake long enough to do so, I find myself talking myself out of something with Derek instead of talking myself into it.

Yesterday evening, while Derek was out for a run, JJ stopped by with Henry and a half gallon of rocky road ice cream - my current favorite. She sat on my bed with me while we passed the container back and forth and we listened to Henry play with Claudia and Charlie. I looked at JJ's growing stomach and smiled, whispered softly, "Henry's going to be a great big brother."

JJ smiled. "He is." Then she paused before saying, "You seem a million miles away, Emily."

I told her how I was feeling about the platelet transfusions lumped on to chemotherapy. It's something I'm finally learning how to do, even though I'm not entirely comfortable with it yet - telling people how I feel. I also told her I was feeling weaker and needier than ever before.

She smiled softly and looked me right in the eye. "Maybe you need to stop thinking about letting people in and letting people love you as you being weak. For Emily Prentiss, I think it just might be the ultimate form of bravery."

I fell asleep last night thinking about what JJ said. It's the first time I considered the idea that they all might have jumped right in and been there for me because of my cancer, but even without that, they wouldn't have shunned me. Eventually, they would have come back into my life, because they love me and know me just as I love them and know them.

Right now it's just a little after two o'clock in the morning, and I've woken up because I feel like my body has just been gently moved. I touch my cheek and feel how warm it is. I look at Derek and I can tell he's faking sleep.

I decide to be brave.

I move out from under my blankets and pull the throw blanket that's over his body so it's covering both of us. I scoot closer to him and raise up enough so I can place a kiss on the soft cotton of his t-shirt, over his heart. I lay my head down on his chest. I whisper, "I'm wide awake and this is where I want to be."

There is absolutely no hesitation before I feel his arms come around me, pulling me closer against his body. I feel him kiss the top of my bald head. I fall asleep with his heartbeat thrumming against my ear, and I wake up in the morning in the same position, with his arms still protectively around me.

It's the first time since I came back home that I have slept for a solid block of time without waking to the memory of a nightmare.

* * *

I thought we'd celebrate the halfway point of Emily's chemotherapy in some significant way, perhaps with that kiss. That didn't happen, hasn't happened, not yet. She's struggling. I watch her try to stay awake, stay in the moment with Charlie and me and anyone else who visits, but it's difficult for her. The platelet transfusions on top of the chemotherapy are wearing her thin, literally and figuratively.

I now sleep under the covers with her, and she sleeps in my arms every night. We're both sleeping better because of it - she slumbers more solidly than I've seen her sleep in all of these weeks, and I sleep more soundly because I can feel her, warm and breathing and still alive, all night long.

On Friday, I got up early in the morning, while the rest of the house still slept, and crept out to my car. The home I shared with Savannah sold the first weekend it was on the market. Savannah wasted no time moving out her things, and it was my turn to do the same. Hotch told the team they were taking the day off to help me. JJ went to spend the day with Emily, and the rest of them came to my house, to help me move out and remove the banister. We went about the process quietly. I wasn't really sad, I just wanted to get it done and get back to Bethesda. With all of us working, we had everything in the storage unit I'd rented by dinner time.

I showed up at Emily's house with two suitcases, skipping going to Manassas to store my larger wardrobe there. Claudia was cooking dinner and Emily was dozing on the couch when I arrived, Charlie leaning against her body, watching a cartoon on the TV. She opened her eyes when she heard the door open, and smiled when she saw my suitcases. "Bedroom," she whispered, before her eyes sleepily closed again.

I raised an eyebrow and carried my suitcases down the hall. I found an additional dresser in the room. I walked towards it and opened the top drawer. It was filled with chocolate hearts. I teared up and laughed quietly.

"She asked JJ to help her," Claudia's soft voice said from the doorway. "JJ and Will went to the store and came home with that. Then she sent me out for the chocolate. She said it was just symbolic, and she hoped you'd understand that she plans to eat it all."

I turned to look at the amazing young woman whom I'd come to trust and care about. She smiled at me and seemed to take no notice of the tears in my eyes. "Prime rib for dinner, Emily's request. I hope you're hungry."

"Starving," I said.

I have absolutely no idea what Emily's paying Claudia, but she needs a raise.

Yesterday morning, on Saturday, before the alarm went off so we could get up and get to Baltimore for another platelet transfusion, Charlie made his way into the bedroom. He crawled up on the bed and settled his little body between the two of us. The feeling of having a family of my own settled over my heart and made emotions swirl in me that I'd never felt before.

Emily looked at me and her eyes welled up, like it was emotionally overwhelming for her, too.

I put my arm around her waist so I was holding her with Charlie between us. "You promised," I whispered to her, reminding her. "I know you feel awful right now and like you might be losing this battle. But you're not going to lose the war, Emily."

She nodded. "I promise."

Still, despite that promise and all the good that's happened between the two of us since that roller coaster ride, I feel like she's slipping away from me. Pain and fatigue are turning her into a shell of herself, and it scares me. It's Sunday and I've been sitting in the chair in the living room, watching her.

She's been staring at the same page of a book for a little over thirty minutes. Charlie is napping, but she napped earlier and is awake now. Outside, I hear thunder rumbling. It's September, and it's still warm and humid outside, but soon these summer storms are soon going to give way to the crispness of fall.

I look at my phone, searching for the storm pattern. Then I stand and walk in front of her, reaching out my hand. "Come on," I say.

She looks up at me like she forgot I was even in the room. "Where?"

"On a drive," I say and take her hand in mine.

"I'm tired, Derek," she sighs softly.

"You can sleep in the car," I respond, not taking no for an answer. I call out to Claudia that we'll be back in a few hours, then I pull Emily to her feet.

She reluctantly follows me and gets in my car. She does fall asleep about ten minutes into the drive. By the time we get to my house in Manassas, the thunder is clapping loudly in the sky and it's pouring rain.

I pull my car to the back of the property before I turn to look at Emily and gently drag the scarf off her head. She wakes up and looks around before her eyes settle on me. "Where are we?"

"Manassas," I respond. "It's time to dance in the rain and jump in puddles."

Her forehead lifts and her face flushes with instant embarrassment. "Derek," she whispers.

I ignore her. I get out of the car and leave my door open, not caring about the inside getting wet. I go around and open her door and pull her out to stand in the rain. I quickly lean back into the car and turn the radio to a station that plays dance music. I crank the volume fully.

Emily's tears are mixing with the rain by the time I stand back up and face her. I take her hands and drag her into the middle of the yard, where we can still hear the music, and let the rain wash over us.

She stares at me like she's unsure of what to do next.

"You can scream out here, too. No one else will hear you," I tell her.

She lets go of my hands and turns her body, looking out into the trees that line the property. The rain is coming down hard, soaking her clothing and bouncing off her shiny scalp. When the scream comes, it shocks me; I didn't think she had something so powerful in her right now. It is guttural, loud, and seems to start from somewhere deep in her soul. It is rage and sadness and fear all mixed into one. It competes with a loud clap of thunder in terms of bone-shaking noise; her scream easily wins.

She stands there quietly for a few seconds when she's done, her chest heaving, before turning to look at me. She's sobbing, and I'm not too far away from that myself, but then she laughs, a combination of joy and embarrassment. She laughs and holds her arms out wide and spins around in the rain, tilting back her head and opening her mouth to catch a few drops.

She is beautiful and I am hopelessly in love with her, and if she dies, I know I'll never recover.

She brings her head forward to look at me. "Now would be a good time," she says with a smile.

I move in front of her in an instant, two large strides and she is in my arms. I trace my fingers over the memory of her hair, eyebrows and eyelashes, before my fingers and eyes settle on her lips. I am ridiculously nervous, and I catch a glimpse of the pulse on her neck fluttering uncontrollably.

When I touch her lips, they are wet with rain water and tears, but they are the lips I remember from my dreams. She moves her arms, placing her right hand on the back of my neck and wrapping her left arm around my waist. I tilt my head slightly and kiss her gently, not interested in rushing things at all. It's Emily who becomes impatient, she whimpers lightly and then her mouth opens under mine.

Her cancer and its treatment have taken so much from her - her hair, many pounds off her body, most of her physical strength and bits and pieces of her spirit, but it hasn't taken the taste of her. As our tongues slowly duel with each other and her hand clutches the soaking wet t-shirt on my back, I find her there - that unique essence that is just her.

Her scream may have been about anger and sadness, but this kiss is about hope and love. I hope she can feel it like I can, this connection we have. I thought that first kiss in her flat in London was perfect, but it pales in comparison to this.

I move the hand on her back lower and glance my fingers under the edge of her t-shirt, and she stiffens. I reluctantly move my lips away from her hers, barely, and raise an eyebrow at her.

"I've just lost so much weight," she whispers. And I get it - she's uncomfortable with me touching her because of how her body looks now. So I move my hand and rest it against her hip instead. And I kiss her again.

It's warm outside, so the rain isn't making me cold, but I'm worried it might be making her chilled. However, she's warm where her chest touches mine. I move my lips to her cheek and down her neck and gather her close to me. I find the beat of the music from my car over the roaring of blood in my ears and the roaring of the thunder overhead. I start dancing with her and she laughs.

"What do you dream about at night, Emily?" I ask in a nervous whisper right against her ear.

The question surprises me; I wasn't planning to ask it. But what surprises me more is that she tells me.

With our arms around each other out in the rain, she starts off her story. "When I was thirteen, I lived in Greece..."


	12. Chapter 12

_A/N - It just occurred to me that it was around this time last year that I started writing Tangled Up in Blue, even though I ultimately scrapped that for the time being and ended up writing Labyrinthine, which I didn't get the guts to publish until August. It was the start of summer vacation for my boys last year, and I had one of my sons at the school behind our house practicing pitching when an errant, hard throw cracked into my ankle. It was at that point that I started re-watching Criminal Minds, while my ankle healed. It was then that I totally caught the Demily bug and started writing._

 _Thank you to all of you who read my stories and for all of the feedback. Writing and your reading/reviews have gotten me through some strange/difficult/amazing times in the past year - from going back to work after being home with our boys for eleven years to my parents' health issues to some pretty terrific milestones in my family's life.  
_

 _The only other time I ever wrote fan fiction was back in 1998 (? I think), when I wrote a couple X-Files stories. I only ever published one short story and one multi-chapter story, back in the days when there was nothing quite like a site such as this._

 _Now the X-Files are filming again, and my little mind is contemplating a crossover story. We shall see if that actually happens._

 _Anyway...I know this story has been sad and angsty. Thanks for sticking with it and for continuing to read. I appreciate you all every day, even if I don't know you! I'm looking forward to what the next year of writing brings...I'm hoping that somewhere in there is a conclusion to Half the Sky! ;-)_

* * *

I spent a good portion of my childhood going to confession at Catholic churches around the world. Those churches were predominant or relatively camouflaged, depending on where we lived. The tradition was always the same, though. I'd walk into a confessional, my face would be masked by a screen or a colorful scarf, and I'd confess my wrongdoings.

When I was eight, I confessed to stealing money from my mother's purse. We were in Afghanistan then, and it was right before we got the hell out of there, before things started going to complete crap. I stole the money to give to some of the friends I'd met there, because I knew we were leaving and I could no longer supply them with the sustenance that was always in abundance at our house.

I was given twenty Hail Marys for my sin.

I clutched my rosary beads and said my prayers and didn't totally understand what I had to be sorry about, or how some man, who never saw my face, and a prayer could make things right. I'd be absolved of my sin of stealing, my family would leave the country - this time to the safety of France - and my friends in Afghanistan would starve.

It was at that point in my life that I stopped feeling too much when I had to leave anyplace or anyone. That was my life. I'd swoop in, I'd make connections for awhile, and then I'd be gone and I learned to not give it a second thought. From the time I was born, the longest I ever stayed any one place was with the BAU.

Seven years after that confession in Afghanistan, with many trivial confessions in between, I confessed an entirely different kind of sin. I'd slept with a young man. I was lonely, my parents were gone a lot, teenagers were not like young children when it came to accepting new people, and I just wanted to feel like I belonged. Tutors and nannies didn't teach sex education, my mother didn't talk about it, and I relied on my friends for my information. In my naivety, I made a monumental mistake: I slept with a friend who convinced me that the timing was right and we'd be just fine.

I was given twenty Hail Marys for my sin.

I clutched my rosary beads and said my prayers, and then said twenty more for what I didn't confess, because the words stuck in my throat. My period was late, I'd been throwing up every morning, often several times, and I'd rather have cut off my breasts than have anyone so much as brush against them.

I never confessed my abortion. That confessional when I told the priest about sleeping with a friend, just a month after my Confirmation, was the last time I ever graced the entrance of a confessional. I had an abortion, my world fell to pieces, my family moved back to DC, and I became someone else. I constructed walls around my heart and my body.

As I aged, I no longer believed that there was anything that could absolve me of my sins except, perhaps, making the world a better place for other people. My Hail Marys became saving the world from injustices and horrors, which I did, for the most part in a strange combination of empathy and detachment. I started believing that I deserved nothing more in my life than righting the wrongs of others because my wrongs were so wide and deep that there was no hope for me.

That's how I lived my life, it's how I constructed the walls around myself - caring, but keeping people at arm's length. And then one man set one foot over those walls, and I took off for London, leaving like it was easy because it was part of my DNA at that point, when it was, in fact, the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life. I stayed hidden away for a long time, committing my life's ultimate sin: I kept a son from a father who would love him completely.

And I've been absolved of that sin, completely, even though I never thought I'd receive or deserved that absolution.

For the first time ever, I feel like I've walked away from a confessional on the right path and emotionally intact. This wasn't a confessional with a priest, and there was nothing masking my face. This was a confessional in the safety Derek's arms, looking him in the eye, on a beautiful expanse of property in Manassas, where, for the first time ever, I felt truly free from my secrets and lies and the choices I'd made in life.

The sky rumbled and the rain washed my sins and sorrow and disgrace and anger away, and Derek sealed the deal with soft kisses that chased those raindrops as they made their way down my face.

While the rain was dripping over our bodies and Derek held me in his strong arms, I told him about Helios, Clymene and Phaethon. I told him about Sun Chariot. I told him how at first I dreamed about him taking Charlie and the sun and leaving me behind, and then I told him about how those dreams shifted, and there was room for me in the chariot, but I couldn't make myself get in.

We stayed far longer in Manassas that day than we originally planned. The thunderstorm blew away and the clouds parted. We ran into Derek's little house and he found me a sweatshirt and sweatpants to change into, pants Derek helped me keep up with duct tape, which made us both laugh. We were riding a wave of giddiness; him because I'd fully let him in, and me because I felt better than I had in months. Actually, I felt better than I had since I found out I was pregnant in a lot of ways. Possibly better than I'd ever felt in my life.

We called Claudia, I napped there for a couple of hours while Derek laid next to me in bed with his arms around me and his lips against the back of my neck. We stayed until well past dark. I listened to the frogs from the safety of Derek's arms while we sat on the back porch, and I saw the tree line light up with what was probably the season's last fireflies. Then, as the sky turned darker and the stars twinkled above us, I pointed out the constellation of Eridanus, which is said to be part of the path Phaethon cut across the sky on his dangerous, solo ride in the chariot.

And Derek kissed my cheek and then my lips. "No dangerous rides for our son," he whispered.

It was the first time he referred to Charlie as _our_ son to me.

The day after our trek to Manassas, at my seventh chemotherapy session, I felt like I turned a corner. Part of it was because of what transpired the day before, part of it was because as the drugs entered my system I thought to myself I only had to do this five more times, which seemed manageable after everything I'd already been through. And part of it was because Dr. McKenzie came in the room towards the end of my session to let me know my platelet level was out of the danger zone, that I needed to have a blood test to re-check on Thursday, but if things held firm, I was done with platelet transfusions.

I started eating voraciously after that, even if the food didn't taste the way it should or I wasn't feeling particularly hungry. I shoveled healthy food into my mouth multiple times a day, and relished the taste of one of Derek's chocolates as a reward when I was done. I gained two pounds between my seventh and eight week of chemotherapy.

The day before I initially met Derek for coffee and told him about Charlie, when I was at Johns Hopkins meeting with my team of doctors and getting things squared away for the start of my treatment, I was encouraged to attend a meditation class for people with cancer. There was a meeting that afternoon, so I went, but being in a room with people in various stages of cancer treatment trying to visualize my body fighting my cancer was not a place I could really wrap my mind around. My internal optimist was encouraging me to go for it and my internal pessimist was bitter and laughing her ass off at the absurdity of it all. It was the only time I tried to go.

I've got my own meditative talisman now, though. His name is Derek Morgan. I've accepted that despite my shortcomings and wrongdoings, he is going to stick by me. I've got searing kisses that leave me breathless and the strength of an unbelievable man who whispers in my ear every night before I fall asleep, "Dream about getting in that chariot with me and Charlie, Emily."

And I do.

I'm not naive enough to believe fully that the next five weeks are going to go perfectly, but sometime between the moment Derek kissed me in that field and Dr. McKenzie released me from imminent platelet transfusions, I kicked my internal pessimist out of my head and sent her packing.

In Derek's love and forgiveness, I am finding my strength again. I feel washed clean.

* * *

I went with Emily to her eighth and ninth chemotherapy sessions. We left Charlie with Claudia and I sat in the room with her, a backlog of BAU paperwork in my bag that I told Hotch I'd try to take care of.

At a certain point at that first appointment I was with her, she nudged my arm and reached for the folder in my lap. I handed it to her and she looked it over.

"Do you miss it?" I asked.

She looked at the paperwork I considered dry and boring and nodded her head. She gestured for the pen in my hand and started writing. I stood up and kissed her lips for a long time. I whispered, "It's nice to see you again, Agent Prentiss."

She smiled at me and tapped the tip of the pen against my lips. "I've missed you, Agent Morgan," she whispered back.

I kissed her again, carefully keeping my hands against her cheek or neck. I was always careful. My hands were always placed in ways that wouldn't cause her to freeze up. Ribs were off limits, her back was questionable. My hands always hovered around her face, for the most part. If I touched a bony part of her, tension would course through so keenly that she felt like she would snap in my hands.

That was getting better, though. She started eating a lot more after our day-trip to Manassas, almost shoving the food mindlessly into her mouth, at least six times a day.

"Do you even taste that?" I asked her.

She shrugged. "Some of it. That's not why I'm eating it. I've decided to attack the end of this treatment like a profile. I need to eat. I need to get stronger, so I'm going to do it, whether it tastes good or not."

"What still tastes good to you?" I inquired.

She smiled and said, "Chocolate." Then she looked down and whispered, "You."

That caused my stomach to roll over with butterflies and my groin to stir, but I pushed those feelings aside. I laughed in a friendly way so she wouldn't be embarrassed. I brought her a chocolate and kissed her soundly before I let her eat it.

Emily was gaining weight, color was returning to her cheeks, and though her energy was much less than it was when I once knew her, it was much better than it was since she'd come back. She wanted to walk everyday, out in the sunshine. She was up and helping with making meals or doing the dishes again. Charlie was finding his Mummy again, though his British accent was waning in these weeks he'd been stateside, and Emily was more often than not just Mommy now.

I was a mixture of contentment, worry and desire that all ran so deep, I couldn't totally make sense of myself most days. We were both waiting for that magical word...remission. But some days it was hard to remember what we were waiting for, and I knew she felt the same. Sometimes when I kissed her, her eyes were so heavy with desire that I knew one little push and she'd give in and stop caring what her body looked like. But I didn't want to be the one who pushed her. I wanted anything more than kisses to be a celebration of the end of all of this and the start of a new, better, beginning. And I wanted her to throw down a welcome mat with none of my urging.

At that ninth chemotherapy appointment, Dr. McKenzie started laying out the plan to wean her off Prednisone. A Dr. Ligh accompanied him and explained that next week they'd do some tests, but it was looking like neither traditional radiation nor surgery on Emily's liver might be necessary. He said he was hopeful that the much-less-invasive radiofrequency ablation would work.

That's why, at her tenth chemotherapy session, I let Claudia go with her. With an open heart and a hopeful mind, I called Dr. McKenzie to inquire about the feasibility of the plan in my head. I got online and booked five plane tickets for the upcoming weekend. One for Claudia, so she could fly back to London for a few days and spend her twenty-fourth birthday with the family I knew she missed. Three for me, Charlie and Emily, so we could go to Boston and see the public gardens and sculpted ducklings and Charlie could live out his favorite book. And one for my mother, so she could meet us there.

When that was done, I took Charlie to meet with a contractor I've known throughout the years. It was approaching the end of September and I wanted things to get started before the winter weather set in, and this contractor was up for starting immediately. I'd made a good profit off the sale of the house I shared with Savannah, along with another house I'd renovated and sold the spring before, and I was looking for an immediate start, too.

Charlie and I flipped through the plans the contractor had in a binder, plans he'd used in the building of other homes, plans that would be much faster to use with modification rather than starting from scratch. I was looking for specific characteristics - not too big, not too small, a guest room for my mother, comfortable, and just the right staircase. I flipped through the pages with Charlie in my arms, and then I found it. With a few modifications, it would be perfect.

"That one," I said to the contractor.

Charlie touched my cheek and turned my head to look his way. "That one, Daddy?"

What I was doing there was completely outside Charlie's level of understanding, but I hugged him to me and kissed his cheek and smiled. I dreamed of a house with a huge backyard for him to play in, and a creek and frogs and fireflies and me and Emily by his side. A home with a little house for Claudia next door, if she wanted it. "Definitely that one," I whispered in our son's ear.

I don't want to get overly optimistic. For the past ten weeks, I have been pushing Emily towards optimism and the belief in her own survival, but I've not been without my own fear and doubts.

But with Charlie in my arms, and Emily seemingly getting better, with the taste of her lips so prominent and frequent on my own, I'm ready to start pushing our reality beyond her cancer. I want her and I both to start finding what's next and striving for it in our hearts.


	13. Chapter 13

_A/N - Sorry for the delay. Took our boys on a mini, YAY-It's-Summer-Vacation road trip for a few days and we left the laptops at home for some serious family bonding time. :)_

* * *

The drive to the airport is short, and Derek holds my hand the whole way while Claudia sits in the backseat with Charlie, reading _Make Way for Ducklings_ to him for the thousandth time since I bought the book about six months ago. She talks to him excitedly, and is excited herself to be going to see her family. I'm nervous, but trying to push through.

I've spent the better part of the past several months avoiding crowds because I couldn't handle the empathetic stares of strangers. Being outside, before I lost my hair, wasn't terrible because I could hide a lot of what made me look the sickest behind sunglasses. But you slap a thin, pale woman in a scarf with no eyebrows or eyelashes in the middle of any indoor crowd and what you get is either people avoiding looking at you, or people looking at you with sad, concerned smiles, or brazen people who want to tell you their own cancer stories.

I'm not particularly fond of any of these scenarios, not because I don't appreciate sympathy, but because I am not the type who likes a heap of attention thrown at her, especially by strangers.

So, when Derek mentioned wanting to put Claudia on a plane to London for her birthday, on the Thursday after my tenth chemotherapy session, and then get me and Charlie on a plane with him to Boston for a long weekend, I was hesitant. For weeks now, I had hoped that if I died, Charlie would at least remember me loving him. And if I lived, I hoped that my treatment would not be a traumatizing memory for him; I wanted him to forget about it. I'd avoided pictures with him during this time, I'd brushed over my illness as much as I possibly could. I tried to make throwing up, tiring easily, or not being able to keep my eyes open seem like it was no big deal for his sake.

To thrust myself into the public to build a memory with Charlie and Derek seemed like an awful idea at first.

"Can we wait until I feel and look better? I don't want pictures with Charlie and me when I look like this." I'd said when Derek first brought up the idea.

"We could wait. Absolutely. But you look fantastic to me and Charlie, and you'll be able to rest in Boston as easily as you can here. And, Emily, there's nothing wrong with Charlie having tangible evidence of this time. He's going to face adversity at some point in his life. What better thing for him to have than proof that when his mother was fighting for her life, she didn't let it stop her from living?" was his soft response.

I looked at him, really looked at the man who had taken a leave of absence from the job he loved for the past ten weeks, and intended to stay with me through the remaining weeks of my treatment. He'd bent over backwards to both love me and not push me and he was asking for just four days. And he was right: I wanted Charlie to be a fighter, and I was mostly being a coward, hiding behind closed doors.

So I told him we could go, and I know I shouldn't worry so much: Derek Morgan has been in tune with me for weeks now, without missing a beat.

When we get to the airport, after we hug an ecstatic Claudia goodbye and get her on her flight home, he finds us a quiet restaurant to sit in until our flight is called. He sits me at a table and effectively uses his body to block me from view from most people. We wait until the last call to get in our first-class, first row seats, so I don't have to suffer the looks of people who pass us as they make their way to their own seats. We are also the first ones off the plane, and he's hired a driver so we don't have to wait for a cab.

The drive to the hotel is short, and we check in quickly. Derek has managed three hotel rooms in a row; one for his mom, and then two connecting rooms, one with a small toddler bed set up next to the queen bed. He is leaving it up to me, where I want to sleep.

The man must be more gracious and flexible and patient that the vast majority of the human population combined, and as fucking high as a kite: I'd slept better than I ever had in my life since I'd started sleeping nightly in his arms, and I'm not planning on changing that now.

Fran arrives at the hotel shortly after we do. She and Charlie reacquaint themselves with each other, like hardly any time at all has passed. We walk around the area near our hotel, which is right on the water, and have a pleasant dinner out together.

The whole time, I keep my eyes on Derek's and Charlie's and Fran's. I realize I could live happily out here in the open with them, even looking like this. I vow in that moment to enjoy the time we have together and take all the pictures we possibly can.

Charlie, who has always been flexible about where he sleeps at night, provided he gets read a book or two and gets a hug and kiss from someone he knows and trusts, falls right to sleep after Derek and I tuck him into bed. Then Derek goes to his room and I get ready for bed in the bathroom in this room.

I'm tired and alive at the same time. It's a feeling I've become accustomed to the past few weeks, a different kind of tired than before. Chemotherapy is exhausting, but I actually feel like I'm getting better. My eyes look better, with the dark circles only faintly visible. I'm on about half as much Prednisone as I was before, and the swelling in my face has diminished quite a bit. I'm gaining weight slowly but surely and don't require as much sleep each day. Compared to how I felt back in July, I'm downright sprightly now.

Clad in loose pajamas, I exit the bathroom and move to the doorway between this room and Derek's. He's sitting in bed, light on next to him, and a book in his hands. He smiles when he sees me, and I don't hesitate or wait for any awkward questions. It _does_ feel different. He's been crawling into my bed at night after I'm already asleep, and my body moves towards his without any conscious thought; this is me coming into what feels like his bed while we're both wide awake. But I make the walk and get into what has become "my side" without saying anything.

He moves his arm immediately, so there is a space for my head on his shoulder and I lay there. My heart is beating just as fast as it was when he first kissed me in that field in Manassas, and I take a deep breath before sinking totally against him, my mind swirling.

"Is this okay?" I ask in a hushed whisper.

He laughs quietly and kisses my head. It's going to be strange when I have hair again; I've become very accustomed to the feeling of his lips against my bald head. "Better than okay," he replies.

We haven't exchanged actual words of love yet, haven't talked about what happens when my treatment is all over, haven't talked about a future at all except that I know he sees me in his future and he knows that's where I want to be. I don't want to get into those discussions tonight, but I reach out and take his hand in mine, feeling like I need to give him something back, for bringing me and Charlie to Boston, for bringing me this far in his loving arms, for loving me when I was initially just hoping for anything besides hate.

"That morning before you left my bedroom in my flat in London, you kissed me here," I say softly as I press his fingers against my chest. "After I found out I was pregnant, I'd lay in bed with my hand against my chest right there, talking to you about the baby inside of me, talking to you about how I felt, how terrified I was, and how sorry I was that I hadn't called you. I wished you could hear me so you would come to me because I was too ashamed and scared to contact you."

I feel his shoulder shift under me and at first I'm scared that he's getting up to leave the bed because of my words, but he's not. He adjusts himself so he's laying on his side, facing me, and rests his hand back against my chest. "How often?" he asks.

"How often did I talk to you?" I ask. He nods and I say, "Almost every day during my pregnancy, and then a couple times a week after Charlie was born until he was about a year and a half old, and then maybe a couple of times a month."

"Until you got sick?" he asks.

I raise my forehead in question. He's right; once I started feeling sick, I stopped talking to him, because I was so absorbed in my own personal fear and mortality. And then it was just about getting back to DC and talking to him in person. "Yes, until I got sick and I knew something was really wrong. Why?"

His lips trail a random path all over my face before he smiles at me. "Maybe I _could_ hear you. I used to dream about that night, almost every night for months and months, and then frequently, a couple times a week, and then it started tapering off. The last time I dreamed about you was in June, about a month before you emailed me, right about the time you started feeling sick and knew something was really wrong."

I blink at him, but keep my eyes on his. We are profilers. We deal in facts and realities. We deal in tangible evidence and concrete psychology. We are not dreamers, we do not deal in the abstract, we do not live in a fantasy world. The psychology of loss is more likely here. He thought about that night a lot at first, and then it tapered off; I talked to him a lot at first and then it tapered off.

But he's smiling at me and I want to believe in this, that maybe there was a part of him that heard me, that maybe there was always something between us that transcended reality and irrefutable facts. That maybe the nearly three years we were apart were not without connection.

The question that has been in the back of my mind for awhile now, the wondering about if we would have ended up here without my cancer and me only telling him about Charlie, dies somewhere in my mind. If I believe in our connection, then I know the answer.

I don't believe in fate and destiny as a rule, but in that moment, I accept it. I don't question his reasoning, and I don't second guess myself. I kiss his lips gently and whisper, "I love you," before my lips totally part from his, so the first time I say those words are not just sound, but the feel of his lips against mine, too. So I feel his absolutely joyful smile against my lips before I see it.

I feel his fingertips against my head and cheeks, fingertips that have ignited a fire on my skin for weeks now, and his lips are pressing against mine. He kisses me until I feel like I'm in a different world than the one that I have always known, and when I am breathless and wishing I had a little more weight on me and a lot more stamina, he tucks my head against his chest and wraps me in his arms. "I love you, Emily Prentiss," he whispers back.

Tomorrow we will go to the public gardens with Charlie and Fran. There will be duck statues and duck boats. We will walk the path that the ducks took in Charlie's book. We will buy him more stuffed ducks and we will smile and laugh. And I will take pictures, with me in them. We will take pictures together, me and Derek and our son.

But for tonight, I will rest my weary head against Derek's chest and sleep. And I'll dream like I have for the past few weeks, with me and Charlie and Derek together, taming wild, fiery horses, and making the sun rise and set the way it should every day.

* * *

I can't even begin to add up the amount of hours I've spent online reading about chemotherapy, but the bottom line is that it's supposed to kill the cancer while just barely not totally destroying the person its treating. In the grand scheme of things, Emily's been lucky. She had her platelet issue, but she's never gotten sick, she's never had a massive infection, she's never landed in the hospital for days trying to combat the side effects.

In the end, she was a fighter like I always knew she could be, like the woman I've always known. And she has very nearly kicked cancer's ass, just like I knew she would.

The problem with planning any sort of celebration on the last day of anyone's chemotherapy is the fact that the person receiving that last injection of intravenous drugs still has side-effects. When the nurse disconnects Emily from her IV for the last time, with Dr. McKenzie standing near with a smile on his face, and Elizabeth Prentiss in the room blinking back tears, I pay no special attention to either of them. My eyes are locked with Emily's, and the happy, relieved tears cascading down her face, her face that is starting to look more like I remembered it, despite her lack of hair.

All signs point to this being a successful treatment. It's been twelve weeks of relative hell, but a triumph at the same time. She'll have to endure blood tests, medicine, and the treatment on her liver in the next couple of weeks, but we are both clinging to more than a hope that a full remission is in her near future.

Her cheeks are already flushed with fever from her treatment, but she looks at me and whispers, "We made it."

I take a deep breath and shake my head. "You made it."

But she shakes her head right back at me, "Just like when we were partners. I'm here because you had my back and I trusted you completely."

I gather her feverish body in my arms and I kiss the tears from her cheeks, not caring that her mother is there.

It's only then that I realize I am crying, too.

We are both just a little more than cautiously happy, we are both hopeful of the future even though we haven't talked about what exactly that looks like.

I take her home to a house full of flowers and balloons, and to a quiet group of people who are her family as much as mine. Hotch, Rossi, Reid, JJ and Penelope greet her with hugs that she reciprocates. Claudia is there with Charlie. Claudia cries and clings to Emily and says, "I always knew it." Charlie doesn't quite know what's going on, only that soon the trips to the hospital will be less, and that maybe his mommy's hair is going to start growing back soon. But he's caught up in the mood and hugs Emily fiercely. She kisses his cheek over and over while I help hold him up in her tired arms.

The BAU leaves softly, with talks of a larger party that weekend to celebrate, which Emily agrees to.

I tuck her gently into bed, and like I have for every even week of her treatment, I spend most of the next forty-eight hours in bed beside her, checking her temperature, keeping my hand against her forehead, alternating so that there is always a cool hand at the ready.

When she blinks her eyes open early on Wednesday morning and I can see that the fever is gone, I kiss her. I go about the morning like it's any other morning, except that there are no more pills to take for the time being. Her body is getting a little break. I make her a milkshake. When her mother arrives a couple of hours later and Emily fades off into a nap, I nod at Claudia who knows my plan. She smiles excitedly at me and nods back.

I drive to Rossi's house first, to collect some supplies, before stopping at the store to get the rest. I arrive at the property and get down to the business of setting up a large canopy with covered sides in the marked off area that will eventually be the dining room in the house I'm having built there, in the area where they'll be pouring a foundation next week.

I run extension cords and set up small, white Christmas lights inside the canopy. And then, around the edges, I set up the lights that are encased with little bronze suns that I found at the store. I get a heater ready to be turned on. I lay down blankets and pillows on the ground, and put together a small, low-lying table I found at the store.

When it looks perfect, I leave to head back to Bethesda. I'll coax Emily into another nap this afternoon. And then, this evening, when she's well-rested, I'll pick up some take-out food, and I'll drive her back here.

I hope that I have not overstepped. I hope that she'll love the idea of this new home as much as I do.


	14. Chapter 14

Derek's car is filled with the scent of take-out food, we are heading towards Manassas, and I feel like if my heart could beat out of my chest and jump out the car door, it could easily keep pace with the vehicle I'm in. He said this was to celebrate the end of chemotherapy and my birthday, which is in a couple of days, but there's a different emotional charge in the vehicle.

I'm not sure what "celebrate" means in his mind, and I'm not sure I can give him what I think is his idea of celebration. I've got not a strand of hair on my body, I've got about eight pounds I'd still like to gain at minimum, and I've got a whole list of insecurities about our future now that it's actually starting to feel like we might have a future.

I stare out the car window at the last minutes of evening light before full darkness overtakes the sky. There are leaves on the ground and it definitely feels like an east coast fall, something I didn't realize I missed so much until a couple of hours before when I was outside with Charlie and Derek and stomping on crunchy orange and red leaves on the back lawn, a crispness in the air and color on my cheeks that I hadn't felt or seen in far too long.

I'm so caught up in my own thoughts and nerves that I don't notice at first when Derek pulls his car over to the side of the road, right on the edge of a neighborhood, where homes give way to fields. We're about two miles from his property in Manassas and I turn to look at him; he's wearing a grin and has a sleep mask in his hand.

"Humor me," he says.

"Derek," I whisper, unsure.

"Trust me," he implores quietly.

Heart skipping a beat and then catching up, all the reservations in my mind don't quite make it to my lips; he looks so happy and excited, and I do trust him, more than anyone. So I grin slightly and take the mask from his hand, placing it over my eyes and looping the elastic over the scarf that's covering my head.

He takes my hand in his and the car starts moving again. A couple minutes later it comes to a stop and I'm surprised to feel tears in my eyes, hidden and being absorbed by the cloth against my face. I feel overwhelmed, here with a mask covering my eyes and what feels like a surprise I'm not sure I can handle on the horizon, even if I don't know what it is.

No matter how much I now know he loves me, and no matter how much I love him, I still don't feel quite worthy of his care, understanding and forgiveness. Still, when I hear him get out of the car and then hear my door open and feel his hand in mine, I move my hand to release my seat belt so I can stand beside him. His hand in is mine and his lips brush against my cheek.

He tugs slightly on my arm, and keeps my body close to his, and I follow him on a short walk; I feel the unevenness of grass and dirt under my feet and hear the leaves crunching as we walk.

"Almost there," he whispers in my ear.

I'm expecting to come to the steps that lead up to the little house on his property, but that doesn't happen. I hear what sounds like material being shifted and then I am pulled forward a couple of steps and against his body. His hands land on my shoulders and he says, "Stay right here."

I stay still while I try to get a sense of my surroundings; it's still cool but I don't feel quite like I'm outside. I see the faint glimmer of light suddenly filter past the edges of the material covering my eyes, and then hear a whir and a light blast of air that quickly turns warm. I hear Derek walking back towards me and then feel his body behind me.

"Ready?" he asks.

I nervously lick my lips and manage to nod. I feel his hands on the mask and feel it being lifted up, away from my eyes. I blink and take in the twinkling lights, the small table with a lit candle on it, the bag of food next to it, and the blankets and pillows on the ground. We're under a covered canopy.

"Where are we?" I ask.

He moves his body so he's standing in front of me and I can see the the thousands of lights he's strung up reflecting in his eyes. "Our dining room," he replies.

I'm confused for about a second, but then my eyes take in the small stakes I see near the corners of the canopy and something clicks in my head. He's not kidding; this is what he's hoping to eventually be our dining room, in a house that's yet to be built.

I blink at him, too stunned to speak, too shocked to cry. He smiles at me, a little uncertain. "I have the plans here," he rushes out, "so you can see. We can pick out the cabinetry and paints and flooring and everything else together when the time comes. It won't be ready until late spring, probably. It depends on the weather this winter. And I talked to Claudia. She wants to stay and keep being Charlie's nanny, and she can live in the little house next door, so she can have her own space."

I glance beyond his body again, thinking that I need to sit down and wondering if I can make it the few steps to the pillows. And then my eyes glance up and I see the lights around the edges of the canopy - really take them in for the first time - white lights encased in in little bronze suns lining the entire edge of this space we're in.

Suddenly, I don't feel like I can breath. I need to say something, because the smile on Derek's face, which was uncertain a moment ago, is now faltering into heartbreak, and I don't want to hurt him. But my fear is right on the surface. The past few months have emotionally scarred me deeper than any of my brushes with death in the past, scarred me even deeper than my time and encounters with Ian Doyle. Because this time I had someone to live for - Charlie. And now I have Derek to live for, too.

Before I can get a handle on my emotions, they rush forth in tears and a cry. "What if I get sick again?" I ask somewhere between a wail and a whimper.

It is my greatest fear, that I'll have to do this all again at some point, that I'll have to make him live through this again, that I'll never truly be well, just sicker and sicker with shorter times in between treatments, until I die. That life with me will be nothing but worry and heartache, and, eventually, loss.

When he leans forward and puts his arms around me, I can't at first return the hug. I sob against his shoulder, letting out tears of both relief at the end of my chemotherapy and absolute terror at the idea of having to repeat it at some point down the road.

"If you get sick again, I'll be right there beside you," he breaths out against my ear.

I shake my head slightly, "I don't want that for you."

"Too bad," he responds immediately, his voice completely serious.

Something about his tone and that two word response makes me huff out a laugh around my tears. I reach my arms up and place them around his waist while he continues talking. "Do you know what my mother said to me on the phone the first time I called her and told her about you and Charlie?" he asks.

I shake my head against his chest again.

"She said that if someone had told her when she first started dating my father that sixteen years with him was all she'd get, she would still have stayed with him. She said that you don't walk away from love just because you're worried about an end date. She said even if someone told her she'd only have a few months, or a year, or a few years, she would would have stayed with him and just enjoyed every moment."

He moves away from my body slightly and places his hands on my cheeks, rubbing away my tears with his thumbs. "We have dangerous jobs, Emily, and nothing is certain. I'm banking on the fact that your liver treatment is going to go well and we won't ever have to talk about cancer again, I really believe that in my heart. But I'm okay with the uncertainty of your health just like you have to be okay with the uncertainty of mine, because there are no guarantees. There's only the time we have, and the power we have to choose how to spend it. I want to spend it with you and Charlie in a home - this home. I want to roll up my pants and splash around with him in the creek next spring and summer. I want to catch fireflies and roll down the hills here. That's _my_ bucket list. It was there in my mind the day before your chemotherapy even started, Emily. You and me and Charlie on this property. And I still want it now."

I take in a deep, shaky breath and absorb his words. "Okay," I whisper.

His eyes search mine. "Okay because I want it, or okay because you want it, too?"

It's the hardest thing I've ever admitted, the idea of having my own little family with Derek, the concept of loving a person and wanting to be emotionally open and vulnerable with him for the long haul, however long that is, but I do. I want it. I've wanted it since the moment I first saw that positive pregnancy test, but distance and fear kept me away to the point that I could have totally missed my chance. But I've got that chance again, for however long it lasts, and I'm going to take it. "I want it, too," I say, my voice trembling slightly. I clear my throat and try again, try to say it in a way that he'll believe me. "I want it," I say more firmly.

Derek's smile is back, and it's no longer uncertain. It's bright and real and for me.

I stretch my neck up to kiss him and he returns the kiss, keeping my cheeks in the palm of his hands. The past several weeks, I've kept my body at a distance from him in a lot of ways, snuggling close only in sleep, and always surrounded by layers of baggy clothing. I've stiffened when his hands have wandered over my body in any way, to the point that he's been keeping his hands on my face or neck only, any time we've kissed.

The air is warm in here from the heater, almost too warm. His lips are soft against mine and his body feels like it fits against mine even though I'm not in my best physical shape right now, not by a long shot. I've been embarrassed about how I look and hiding that from him, but in that canopy surrounded the soft, twinkling lights, I don't feel as embarrassed anymore. We're alone, I'm done with chemotherapy, I feel truly alive and awake for the first time in months, and I find myself wanting to celebrate that.

Without thinking too much about it, I reach down towards the edge of my sweater and pull it up, breaking our kiss long enough to get it over my head, the scarf on my head falling off as I do so. I close my eyes briefly, in embarrassment, as I toss the sweater on the ground, but open them when Derek whispers reverently, "Emily."

In his eyes, unlike my mirror, I don't see my protruding rib bones or feel ugly. He's breathing more heavily and if I accept what I see on his face, I am beautiful to him.

"I didn't bring you out here for this," he murmurs while running his fingers on my skin, just above the edge of my bra.

"Too bad," I say, with a small smile on my lips. A laugh bubbles up from out of nowhere and my fear and nerves that were all I could feel a few minutes ago seem a long way away. His fingers are on my skin, and it's like how I remember them, all those years ago. There is him and me and twinkling lights in the space that will someday be our dining room.

* * *

She seems to be giving me the green light, but I'm not taking it that way. I see flashing yellow just behind the smile in her eyes: proceed with caution.

I make no sudden movements and make frequent eye contact as we kiss and slowly remove our clothing. My shirt, her bra, my pants, her pants, our underwear - they all come off one piece at a time with no rush and plenty of time in between for her to put a stop to this if she wants to. But she doesn't.

It's only when I help lower her to the pillows on the ground and she is laying naked before me that I see uncertainty in her eyes and watch the flush of embarrassment tinge her cheeks. I pause, but she doesn't ask me to stop; she doesn't say anything at all, just keeps her eyes on mine.

I map her body like it's written in braille, trying to find the story of what the past several months have truly done to her, inside and out, and searching for the woman I remember from my dreams. She is sharp hip bones and a concave stomach. She is faded stretch marks on her lower abdomen from being pregnant with Charlie. Her breasts are slightly smaller and her collar bone meets her shoulder without any of the soft slope I remember.

Still, as my fingers play a tantric melody over her smooth skin, from her neck down to her ankles and back up, all of these changes make her even more beautiful to me because she's here and alive.

She stares at me as I stare at her body and her face and I see and feel her start to tremble. I look up and she's lightly crying again, but not sadly, not because she wants me to stop. She is scared, but she loves me and trusts me.

I lean over her body, keeping most of my weight off of her, and kiss her slowly. "I love you and you are beautiful, Emily," I whisper against her lips. And then, as a quiet, soft exclamation point to my words, I pull back enough so that my lips can blaze the path that my fingers just took.

She starts to respond to me then, letting go of some of the rigid tension I felt coiling inside of her before. Her hands reach for any part of me she can reach, running over my head and the skin on my upper back and shoulders.

I make my way back to her lips and settle gently over her again, wondering if it would be better if she was on top because, despite the fact that she is strong and resilient, her body seems so fragile right now. But she wraps her arms around me and pulls me more firmly down on top her her, her legs spreading and wrapping around my thighs.

I ask the question I asked her over three years ago. "Is this okay without a condom?"

But she's not drunk and there is no hesitancy in her eyes. She nods. I'm curious whether she's banking on the chemotherapy rendering her infertile or if she's on some form of birth control, but I don't want to get into a discussion right now. I trust her. I nod back at her and kiss her, trying to keep most of my weight on my bent forearms. I kiss her until she is squirming under me. "Now," she whimpers as she wrenches her lips away from mine and gasps in a few breaths.

This is not going to be the mind blowing sex from her bucket list, at least not the way I think she meant it when she said it. But it's going to be mind blowing in its own way, because we're here like this at all.

I shift my hips and adjust my lower body, reaching one hand down to get myself in the right position. She is hot and wet and ready and I have to bite my lip as I sink inside her.

 _This_ I remember. It doesn't matter that the room was spinning the last time we did this, my body and mind remember exactly how it felt to be inside her, and it feels the same now. I watch her moan and sigh and I remember that, too, how she sounded in those short minutes I was able to hold back the last time we did this.

I'm not drunk this time, either, and in that moment, my pleasure becomes completely secondary, my entire focus becomes her and keeping her making those sounds. After a couple of minutes of easy, slow movements, I can feel her squirming again and her legs slide up so they are wrapped around my waist, her hips moving, trying to get me to speed up, but I maintain my pace.

Her face is flushed and there are thin beads of sweat breaking out on her forehead and on her upper lip. I kiss her there, chasing the sweat away and she opens her eyes to look at me, moving her hips faster again. "Please. More," she whispers, and her face flushes with embarrassment.

I kiss her cheeks and start moving faster, moaning myself when I feel her inner muscles clench around me and her thighs squeeze my waist. "Yes," she whispers, and then it becomes a mantra, "Yes, yes, yes," and I know she's close, but I can't do much more from this position without worrying about crushing her, and I feel myself slipping closer to the edge myself despite my best efforts.

Using my strength, I get my knees under me, and my arms under her upper back. I rock back and haul her up with me, never breaking our connection. Her eyes snap open and she seems stunned when she finds herself straddling my thighs with me still on my knees. I move my hands to her hips and help raise and lower her on top of me and she throws her head back again.

My lips are on her neck, and I feel her plant her feet on the ground and she starts moving on top of me. Knowing this is probably the last of her strength, I reach my hand down and touch her, rubbing my thumb right above where we are joined, and she screams. Actually screams. Her arms wrap around me and squeeze me tight and she is the most stunningly gorgeous person I have ever seen with my eyes or felt against my skin. I hold her to me as she shakes and convulses, and then lay her back on the pillows.

A few gentle thrusts later and I find myself moaning my release in her ear, my resolve cracking and my emotions washing over me like a tsunami as my body empties into her. I swallow past the lump in my throat and clench my eyes shut because I don't want her to see my crying, which I'm very close to doing.

"I love you," she says. It's barely a whisper. She's exhausted after exerting her body more than she has in a long time. Her arms, which were holding me tightly a second before, loosen. I raise my head and see her struggling to keep her eyes open.

I roll my body off hers and reach for one of the blankets, pulling it over both of us. It's only when her breathing evens out and she drifts off to sleep that I let a couple of tears go. "I love you, too," I whisper back.

I can't lose her. Ever.


	15. Chapter 15

I wake up in the middle of the night with a deep need to see Charlie's face, so I carefully creep away from Derek's warm body and make my way to his room. If I sit at just the right angle on Charlie's floor, the light from the hallway bathroom casts just enough of a glow that I can catch the details of his face while he sleeps; Derek's nose and my eyelashes, his lips and my chin. In the past few months, Charlie's lost some of the toddler chubbiness in his cheeks and has grown a couple of inches, stretching out his proportions and making him look older. When I think about how I miss him when he was a baby, it causes an ache in my heart; I wish I could go back and do it all over again, this time with Derek.

Tomorrow I will go in for the radiofrequency ablation procedure on my liver – some intravenous drugs to help me relax and possibly sleep, some local anesthetic, a small nick on my abdomen and then a long needle with electrodes attached will enter my liver and hopefully fry the hell out of the tumor there. I'm hopeful this will work. Even before this procedure, my blood work and cell count has thrust me into the "partial remission" category. There's a very good chance that before we celebrate Charlie's first Halloween in the states, I might get a "complete remission" diagnosis. Just those two words said in my head send anticipatory shivers down my spine.

It's three o'clock in the morning and for the first time since May, I am up in the middle of the night and not feeling exhausted, though I have reason to feel that way. Last night, Claudia went to the movies with Penelope, and as soon as Charlie was asleep, Derek and I had a repeat performance of what transpired a week ago under that canopy in Manassas. An hour later, we repeated it again. Everything has been slow and mellow and beautiful, because, while my energy level is increasing daily, I'm still nowhere near to swinging from the chandeliers when it comes to sexual escapades.

Not that I was ever the "swing from the chandeliers" type. Not by a long shot. But I could see myself being that way with Derek, which both thrills me and frightens me. The fact is that now that the quiet time I have is not dictated by the absolute need to sleep all the time, I've been spending it in quiet contemplation, mostly wondering who the hell I am now.

Last Friday, I called Clyde Easter to inform him officially that I would not be returning to Interpol, and asked for his help to get Claudia the paperwork she needed to stay here with me. Once that conversation ended, I had a long talk with Claudia, and then I booked her an airline ticket to spend the first two weeks in November back in London, where she will empty my flat. I told her to give as much of my furniture to her family as they want, and they can sell the rest and keep the money. I'm taking their daughter away from them, even though she's an adult, she's coming willingly and absolutely wants to stay with me and Charlie and Derek. My nice furniture is the least I can give them in return.

Claudia won't necessarily be without family here, though, because last Saturday when we all gathered at Rossi's to celebrate my forty-fifth birthday and the end of my chemotherapy, JJ had jokingly asked Claudia, "Do you have a sister just like you?"

Claudia had replied with a smile and a sparkling glimmer in her eyes, "Actually, yes. Elaine. She's about to turn twenty-one, not that much younger than I was when I started taking care of Charlie."

So, when Claudia returns the second week in November, Elaine will be coming with her to meet JJ and Will and Henry, to see if it will work, before JJ's baby arrives. I've met Elaine; she and Claudia could be twins in both looks and personality. I'm pretty sure that there will soon be two Wright girls living in the DC area, and though there's a part of me that feels guilty about that, because of their parents and other siblings, I'm thinking JJ and Will could use the reliability and joy a modern-day Mary Poppins can bring to a household as much as I could.

When I told Claudia that next year we'd enroll Charlie in preschool, for at least partial days, and that she could use that time to take college classes herself, her eyes had filled with tears. "Nobody in my family went to University," she whispered.

I had hugged her and told her that she could be the first. The truth is, Claudia could probably run circles around most college literature professors, and I'm fairly certain she'll plow through any coursework thrown her way.

I sigh and shift my angle slightly in Charlie's room so that more of his face is illuminated by the faint light. I clasp the soft black leather in my hand and then hold it up to the light, flipping it open and staring at a picture of myself, my old FBI badge. Last Saturday at Rossi's, Hotch had pulled me aside and handed me the badge wrapped in a small box. It's not valid anymore, but he'd never turned it in like he was supposed to, apparently. "It would be easy for me to make that active again," he'd said quietly. "JJ will be going out on maternity leave soon, and I know you won't want to travel with us, but you could work in the office, even part time, to help with some of the backlog because of her absence."

I remember staring at my face, at a picture that was taken about a week after I came back from Paris, wondering how the woman who looked so confident, happy and in charge in that picture had gotten so lost. "What about my relationship with Derek?" I'd asked him.

Hotch had shrugged. "You won't be in the field together. I won't tell anyone if you won't. Look, I know it's not something you'd want to do permanently, but there are options for you in the FBI, Emily. Plenty that don't require travel. The fact is, getting hired from within the FBI is far easier than getting hired cold from the outside again, regardless of your position at Interpol. Get your strength back, come back after the New Year, work with us for a few months, and take a look at your options." He paused and put his hand on my shoulder. "If you want to, that is."

I'd managed to smile at him. "Thank you, so much. I'll think about it."

I've been thinking about it ever since then, for four days, and I have no real answer about what I want to do. Sloughing through paperwork at the BAU is only appealing because I'd be at the BAU; other than that it sounds rather depressing. Then again, I know I don't want to be a field agent again, and I don't want to apply for higher ranking jobs and the long hours they entail. I'm completely done with sixty-plus-hour work weeks. However, there are other options within the FBI, and Hotch is right, it's easier to get hired from within.

I run my thumb over my face on the picture on my badge, trying to remember _that_ Emily Prentiss, which isn't so difficult. It's the Emily Prentiss before Doyle escaped that I can't really grasp onto. And it's the Emily Prentiss I am now that feels like I'm dancing on a thin wire, straddling one part of me that feels nearly well and healthy and completely grounded for the first time ever in my life, and the other part of me that is completely freaked out by the prospect of a real, lasting relationship with Derek.

"I remember when that picture was taken," Derek whispers from the doorway. I startle at his voice and then look at him, standing like Adonis in Hanes boxer briefs in the doorway. He continues, "I couldn't let you out of my sight at first after you came back from Paris, so I followed you down to Human Resources and made silly faces at you while that picture was being taken."

I smile and laugh lightly. "I remember," I whisper back.

"Nervous about tomorrow?" he asks as he comes to sit next to me on Charlie's floor, grinning softly at our son's sleeping face.

"Not really."

"Nervous about the idea of coming back to the FBI?"

"A little. I'm not sure it's what I want, but I don't know what I really want."

"Nervous about me?" he asks while touching my hand.

I hesitated and then nod, my eyes involuntarily stinging.

"I can understand," he whispers in my ear. "I'm a pretty scary guy."

I laugh quietly at those words. Whatever scary looks like, Derek Morgan is the exact opposite. "I've just never really done this before. I don't know how this all looks, me healthy again and you and me in a relationship, living together, raising a child together."

He kisses my cheek and then takes my hand in his, removing the badge and placing it gently on the ground. "It looks just like the past twelve weeks have looked, Emily, except with me working and you sleeping less. It looks like dinners together, just like we've been having. It looks like fighting for the last cup of coffee in the coffee pot, just like we've been doing. It looks like binge watching television shows after Charlie goes to bed, but instead of sitting beside each other on the couch, you'll be in my arms. It looks like walks to the park and pushing Charlie on the swings, except you'll be able to walk to parks a little farther away and be doing the pushing instead of just watching. That's what I think, anyway."

I turn my head to look at him and catch Charlie moving in his bed out of the corner of my eye. I move to stand and keep my hand in Derek's, tugging until he's standing, too. When we're out in the hallway, and I'm feeling more on the grounded side of the live wire that is my emotions these days, I lean up to kiss him. "You're going to make me lose out that last cup of coffee when I'm well again, aren't you?"

He laughs quietly and kisses me back. "Yes, but I'll always make you another pot of coffee, Emily."

* * *

Watching Emily get wheeled away for the procedure on her liver is excruciating. I've waited for her while she was in the hospital a couple of times, but I've only ever agonized over her well-being in a hospital waiting room once before, and that didn't exactly end well.

"This procedure is safe, Agent Morgan, and the doctor performing it is one of the best in the nation," Elizabeth Prentiss says to me.

I turn to look at her and smile. "You really need to start calling me Derek."

She contemplates me for a few seconds, looking like she wants to ask me a million questions, but settles for saying, "I can do that, Derek, if you can drop the Mrs. Prentiss and call me Elizabeth."

I nod. "Deal, Elizabeth."

We lapse into silence before she speaks again. "Emily informs me that you're intending to move her and Charlie out to Manassas."

I nod again, feeling like I'm about to get reprimanded. "I'm having a house built. It's a beautiful property."

Elizabeth's hand on my back is startling and warm; startling because she's been pretty hands-off and uncertain of me the few times I've seen her in the past several weeks, and warm where I always expected cold. "Emily will like that. She's always, always lived in big cities. Even when she was an adult, she chose to live in the city and commute when necessary, like living in DC and commuting to Quantico. But I think she did that because it's what she's always known. When she was nine, we went on holiday to southern France. She looked around wistfully wherever we went and asked if we could ever live someplace like that, with green hills and houses spread far apart. It will be good for her, a mellower life. I think it's what she's always wanted, but didn't know how to get there."

I turn my head to contemplate this woman whom I really don't know at all, and who Emily has always intimated didn't understand her.

"I'm not blind, Derek, but sometimes it takes a crisis to make you really open your eyes. I always thought I had forever to fix things with my daughter, and this has taught me how short forever might actually be. So you take her out to Manassas, and you love her and my grandchild, and I will visit regularly and keep fixing things as best as I can."

I grin and then lean forward and give Elizabeth a light hug, surprising both of us. She only hesitates a second before hugging me back. We pull apart after that, smiling in slight astonishment at each other, and lapse into an amicable silence, alternating between flipping through magazines and staring our watches. A little over an hour later, Dr. Ligh comes out with a smile on his face. "It went well. Amazingly well. Emily's groggy, but you can go back and see her. We'll keep her here for a few hours and do another ultrasound to make sure things look like we hope they do. After that, she'll come back in a week for another assessment and more blood work."

He stops there and claps his hand against my arm. _After that, we might get the word that this whole nightmare is over,_ I think. My heart is racing in hope.

Elizabeth and I flank either side of Emily's hospital bed and she smiles groggily at both of us before her eyes close. I bend forward and kiss her forehead, whisper, "I love you," in her ear, then excuse myself to the hallway for a minute.

I dial Penelope, who anxiously answers the phone before the first ring is over. "She's fine, Pen. She's good. Everything went well."

I hear Penelope's relieved sigh on the phone. "I'll let everyone know."

"I need another favor, and it might be slightly more difficult than getting us on a roller coaster before a park opens," I reply.

"Anything," she says.

It's something completely ridiculous that I've been tossing around in my head. Emily's either going to laugh and cry in happiness, or she's going to think I've totally lost my mind. I know she's been struggling with the idea of a relationship with me, or a long-term relationship in general, not that I think she's going to back away from this, not at all. But I do think my time for overt, romantic gestures might be coming to a close for awhile while Emily finds her cancer-free footing, so I'm going to take my opportunity while I can. I won't follow through on it unless her prognosis a week from now looks excellent, but it will take planning.

So I tell Garcia what I need, and in between fits of giggles and her telling me that I'm priceless, she says she'll get right on it.

* * *

"Complete remission," Dr. McKenzie says with a smile on his face.

It's October thirtieth, a little over a week after my ablation, and Derek and I have been hanging out in Baltimore for hours, with Claudia, Charlie and my mother, while we waited for my blood work results. The ultrasound on my liver was exactly what the doctors and we all hoped; the tumor looks like it's completely radiated and soon will be nothing more than a small, dime-sized patch of scar tissue. Though Dr. McKenzie told me not to get my hopes up about my blood work indicating that I appeared cancer free just yet, it looks like my body had other plans.

For the first time since the previous May, I feel like I'm back in control of myself, physically. Emotionally, I'm a wreck, though. As soon as the words are out of Dr. McKenzie's mouth, I am sobbing, my face in my hands and my body hunched forward in a chair. Only Derek is there in the office with me; everyone else is in the lobby.

I don't hear Derek move, but I feel it when his body kneels before mine. "I told you," he says thickly as he moves my hands away from face. "I told you you'd kick cancer's ass."

I laugh through my tears and throw my arms around his neck. I can't get myself under control, and I'm not sure I want to. This feels like a release, more than screaming and crying in a field. Despite what I've shared with Derek, I've held a lot of my own fear in check, and it's all coming out in tears that are soaking into his shirt now.

Dr. McKenzie pats me on my back and says, "I'll give you two a few minutes."

As soon as he leaves, Derek is kissing me. I have tears streaming down my face and my nose is running and he doesn't seem to care. His hands are on my face and he is kissing me, and then he is hugging me again, and he's laughing and crying, too.

I know this isn't a guarantee of an absolute future; I know this could all come back. But I also know that it's a reprieve, for now. And possibly forever. In the moment, I'm going to take what I can get.

Dr. McKenzie comes back in and I reach for the the tissues on his desk. He makes an appointment for me for a month from now, and then we go out to tell Claudia and my mother the news. I try to keep it together, but when Charlie sees us and runs towards me, I'm crying again, and laughing. I pick my son up and clutch him to me, showering his cheeks with kisses and smiling, assuring him that I'm actually happy and that my tears are just because I'm so happy.

"That's it," Derek whispers in my ear.

I turn to look at him as I feel Claudia's arms and my mothers surround me. "That's the look I wanted to see on your face in person with him. You kept your promise, like I knew you would."

I smile and then laugh and lean over to rest my head on his shoulder while everyone's arms are around me.

Unlike the way I walked into my first treatment, with quiet worry and love from my mother and Claudia, we walk out, all connected in some way, either hand in hand, or hands on arms, with relieved smiles on our faces.

I don't sleep much that night, much like I didn't sleep the night before my treatment started. Every time I doze off, I startle shortly after. "It's real, right?" I ask Derek several times throughout the night.

Each time, he kisses my cheek or lips and assures me that it's real. By around four o'clock in the morning, I don't have to ask him anymore. He gives up on sleep. I startle awake and his eyes are right there on mine, his arms around me, he whispers, "It's real, Emily," before I even get the chance to ask.

We wake on Halloween morning to Charlie crawling in our bed, already in his duck costume. We showed him several Halloween magazines and presented many different options, but from the moment we first talked to him about Halloween and started reading him books about Halloween, he said he wanted to be a duck. He never wavered.

"It's Halloween, Mommy and Daddy!" he exclaims excitedly.

"It is!" I say just as excitedly.

"Can we trick or treat?" he asks.

"Not until it gets dark tonight. But we can carve a pumpkin, my little duck."

We spend the day carving pumpkins, watching Halloween-related cartoons, and stringing orange lighting on the front of our house.

At around four o'clock, Derek leaves. He kisses my hand and says he needs to go see about some costumes for the two of us.

"We're dressing up?" I ask. I haven't dressed up on Halloween since college.

"We absolutely are. You just hang tight. I'll be back in a couple of hours," he says with a wink.

I turn to look at Claudia. "Do you know what he's up to?"

"I've been sworn to secrecy," she says with a grin.

I stare at her and she just laughs. "Live a little, Emily. When have any of his surprises been anything other than exactly what you wanted or needed?"

We make it through the next couple of hours and manage to get Charlie to settle his excited body long enough to get a few bites of dinner in him. Just as it's approaching six o'clock, I hear Derek's voice shouting from outside the front door, "Clymene!"

My heart lands somewhere around my knees at that, and my cheeks flush with the remembrance of the fanciful, mythological world I'd been living in my dreams and sharing with Derek the past few weeks. I glance at Claudia, who is very much trying to contain her joyful laughter.

I stand and pick up Charlie. We both approach the front door and open it. I'm not sure what I was expecting; Derek with robes for me to wear, maybe. What I was not expecting was for him to be standing in a horse-drawn carriage, wearing a toga and an olive-branch wreath on his head, a large cardboard sun attached to the back of the carriage.

He's holding out robes to me, long flowing robes. "Ready to go for a ride, Clymene?" he calls out with a smile on his face.

I realize my mouth is hanging open and close it. I'm too shocked to speak at first, but one of the horses whinny, and Charlie says, totally confused, "Horses, Mommy?" and Derek grins even more at me, and I toss my head back and laugh. I laugh louder and more completely than I have in months, possibly years.

"You're crazy, Derek Morgan!" I call out.

"That's Helios to you, and I'm completely crazy. Come be crazy with me."

I grin and make my way towards the carriage. I place Charlie on the ground and Derek jumps down with the robes in his hand, wrapping them over my clothes. He ties the sash and kisses my nose, and my face might crack, I'm smiling so hard. Somewhere in the back of my emotions, I want to let loose a waterfall of tears because of this remarkable man in front of me, but I keep them in. We've had enough tears, and I only want to enjoy this.

Derek picks Charlie up and Claudia is suddenly there, handing Charlie his little plastic pumpkin to fill with candy. She pats me on the back and says she'll walk with Charlie when he's done with the horses and just wants to get to the houses faster.

The next thing I know, I'm settled in the carriage, Charlie sitting between me and Derek. "Since when do you know how to drive a carriage?" I ask him.

"Since last Saturday. When I told you I had to go check on the property in Manassas? I was getting lessons. But don't worry, that man standing on the sidewalk beside us owns this thing. He's going to stay close tonight, just in case we need a little help."

I turn and glance at the elderly man who is smiling at me from the sidewalk. I turn back towards Derek. "Penelope?" I ask.

"Yes, but she doesn't know the whole story, Emily. Just that you like mythology. That story is yours and mine and Charlie's."

I grin at him and he leans over to kiss Charlie's bewildered head, Charlie who is clutching his plastic pumpkin and looking at the horses and wondering why this doesn't look at all like the Halloween picture books he has.

"Ready to go trick or treat, Charlie?" Derek asks.

"With horses?" he asks.

I throw my head back and laugh again. "With horses. Don't worry. Watch. Your daddy knows how to handle these horses just fine and he'll get you there."

Derek snaps the reins lightly and the horses start clopping down the street.

"Pretty smooth, Derek Morgan," I murmur before leaning over to kiss his cheek.

"It will be like this, too, Emily, in our future," he tells me. "Random, amazing surprises. Though I'll be hard pressed to top this."

I grin and an unfamiliar feeling washes over me. It takes me a few seconds to recognize it as contentment, real, genuine, contentment. And the feeling of being in love, I think that's part of what I'm feeling, but it's new and I've never felt it before, so I can't be certain.

But I have time to figure it out.

* * *

 _A/N - At least an epilogue is coming. :)_


	16. Chapter 16

Derek is serene in his sleep. I'm not sure if he was always that way or if it's because he's now sleeping next to me. Experimentation leads me to think that I might have something to do with it. When I wake up in the middle of the night, there is always some part of him touching me; if I move out of his range, faint lines of concern appear on his forehead almost instantly, his body shifts in his sleep seeking me out again. If he can find me and place a hand on me or an arm around, the lines disappear and relaxation resumes; if he can't, he wakes up.

I discovered this back in November, when I got out of bed to use the restroom. I moved out from under his arms and out of the bed, and happened to glance back at him. In the faint glow from the hallway light, I saw his face become concerned in his sleep, saw his arm reach out and search for me on the bed.

Since then, when I've woken in the middle of the night, which I often do when I'm nervous, I've sometimes moved out of his grasp, just to watch him make his way towards me in his sleep again. I imagine it's how I looked all those months before when I did the same - finding the comfort of his body in my sleep before I was willing to admit that I consciously wanted exactly what my subconscious was going after - him.

Tonight, however, he seems to sense my worry, because when I move out of his arms, his eyes snap open right way. He reaches his hand towards my face and traces the eyebrows that have grown back in the past couple of months, eyebrows that are slightly thinner than before, at least for right now, but in essence the same as they were before. He moves his thumb gently over my eyes, which I shut in anticipation - I'm used to this now, Derek's waking-up ritual, where he traces his fingers over my hair regrowth and watches daily as my eyelashes make their way back to something we both remember.

"Nervous about tomorrow?" he finally whispers. He glances at the bedside clock over my shoulder and sees that it's two o'clock in the morning. "I mean later today?"

In seven hours, I'll report to Quantico for my re-certification physical and ballistics exams. And, yes, I am nervous. Of the multitude of things my cancer and its treatment stripped from me, any sort of confidence in my body or brain to do what I need it to do has become a faint memory, though I'm hoping that if I pass tomorrow, that confidence will start coming back like it once was, much like my eyelashes.

I nod at Derek, confirm that I am, indeed, nervous, and he slides forward in the bed, wrapping me in his arms and rubbing my back gently.

There's a lot doctors tell you about what life looks like after chemotherapy - you don't just walk away cancer-free and step back into your old self. November and December were full of ups and downs.

In mid-November, the night before Claudia and Elaine returned from London, when Derek and I were naked in bed, he ran his hand from hip down my leg and back up, and then his face lit up like a Christmas tree.

"What?" I had asked him.

He'd taken my hand in his and guided me to reach down to my calf, then slid my hand back up. And there it was, the barely beginning of hair re-growth on my legs, just a light prickle. That was the start of my hair coming back, and it was thrilling at first. But when the hair on my head started coming in, it wasn't like my old hair at all. It was kinky, sprinkled with gray, and had a texture like it had been dipped in chemicals for hours. I was told this was common, and that what my actual regrowth would ultimately look like wouldn't been known for months; there were toxins in my system causing my hair to resemble a brillo pad and it would take months for them to work their way out of me.

I stuck with hats and scarves through the holidays, and bought a wig at the end of December, so I could walk back into the FBI and the BAU not looking sick, because by New Year's Eve, you really would never know I had had cancer on the outside, except for my hair.

The highlights of November and December were celebrating the holidays with Derek and Charlie. Fran came out for Thanksgiving, and we celebrated at my mother's house, of all places. It ended up being a larger party than originally planned - we had Fran and Claudia, but Claudia had her sister there now, and though Thanksgiving was an American holiday, it was still a time for family. So Elaine came, and then, because my mother extended the invitation to the people Elaine now lived with, Will and JJ and Henry came as well.

At first I was nervous about the idea of Charlie and Henry in my mother's house, where there were a lot of delicate decorations, and a white carpet in the dining room. I got quite a shock when we arrived and found my mother's home not at all like it was the last time I saw it, back in July when I first came home. Mom picked Charlie up when we arrived and kissed his cheek, then she smiled at my wide eyes as I took in her brownstone that had been redecorated to actually look comfortable instead of precise and fussy. "I decided a new look that's better for my grandson was in order," she told me with a smile.

We went to Chicago for Christmas and had a wonderful time with Derek's sisters and extended family, a family that embraced Charlie immediately, which wasn't a surprise. What did surprise me was the immediacy with which they all embraced me, literally and figuratively. I think I was the recipient of more hugs the four days we were in Chicago than I had received up to that point in my life.

And two days after we returned home, on December twenty-ninth, JJ gave birth to another, beautiful baby boy.

It was the middle of November when Derek returned to work, and though I wouldn't exactly call that a high point for either of us, or Charlie, because we all missed each other when he was gone on a case, it was a good thing. Getting back into a routine brought a layer of normalcy to our lives that we needed. "If you don't want me to work for the BAU anymore, just say the word, Emily," he'd said to me the night before he was to return to work. I appreciated the offer, but the BAU is as much a part of Derek Morgan as Charlie and I now are.

It was that night that I decided to take Hotch up on his offer, even though there were things that concerned me about it, and those things had everything to do with me. During my chemotherapy, I thought the brain fog that I experienced, where I'd sometimes lose a train of thought or not remember what I was doing or going to say was part of being sick. It was a shock to discover that I was still just as foggy when the chemo was over and I was officially cancer-free. This can also be an unfortunate side effect of chemotherapy, and it lead to much frustration for me throughout the holidays. I am used to being quick-witted and efficient, and I hated the times when it felt like I no longer was.

My doctor assured me that it should get better, and Derek encouraged me to control what I could. What I could control was my physical strength, and passing the physical portion of a field agent's certification became my focus. I had no intention of doing anything with that status, and Hotch told me it was not necessary, but I became hell bent on making that goal. When I was standing in the kitchen, for instance, wondering how the hell I got there and what I was intending to do, I could let my frustration at my brain fog go and instead feel good about running a mile, and then two miles, and then three. When I felt like my brain wasn't working quite right, I could get down in the living room and do sit ups and push ups.

My first week back at the BAU at the beginning of January, where I was slated to work twenty-five hours a week, I started hitting the gym with Derek every morning, and the firing range every day at two o'clock before I headed home. I participated in every tactical training exercise I had time for, and was able to walk in the door at the house in Bethesda by four-thirty every afternoon. I enjoyed the schedule, and I enjoyed the fact that when he wasn't away on a case, Derek left work shortly after me. He had to bring paperwork home, but in terms of what it felt like to start living a real life with Derek and Charlie, it was a routine I definitely loved.

Three weeks after I walked into the BAU with a wig that looked a lot like my old hair, with the scale telling me I'd gained back every pound I'd lost, and an active badge in my hand, I requested to take the exam, and I'll be taking it in just a few short hours.

"You'll pass, Emily. You'll pass with flying colors," Derek murmurs against the skin of my forehead.

I know he's probably right, and it's something I would have walked into with confidence before, but there's self-doubt there now, which is what woke me up in the middle of the night. I imagine my legs giving out on me while I'm running, or my arms not holding me as I try to pack in as many push-ups as I can in sixty seconds. I worry that I'm going to get that gun in my hand and blank out and forget how to undo the safety or pull the trigger, even though that's never happened before.

"I know I probably will," I whisper back to Derek.

He continues to rub my back, but I know he senses that I am still wide awake. His hands move under the t-shirt I'm wearing and trace over my spine and then my ribs, over the skin that now has a layer beneath it that covers my rib bones. "Want some help falling back to sleep?" he asks.

I laugh lightly against his chest. We rarely indulge in any sort of intimacy when Claudia is home; this house is small and her room is right next to ours. It's one of the many reasons we're counting the days until May first, the day the contractor says our house in Manassas will be completed. But it's the middle of the night, Claudia's sound asleep, and Derek and I can both be relatively quiet when we need to be.

I pull back slightly from him and run my finger down his chest and abdomen and over the front of his pajama pants, feeling him twitch beneath my finger. "I could use a little help getting back to sleep," I say.

He laughs almost silently and rolls me so I am laying on my back. His kiss, which is so familiar by now, but utterly new each and every time, ignites a fire in both of us.

This has definitely been a highlight of the past few months, especially the times that we didn't have to be quiet. As my energy-level increases, I've learned to enjoy sex in a way I never have before, completely letting myself go and giving myself over to another person. These more wild interludes have taken place in this house, when Claudia is out and after Charlie is asleep, or they've taken place at the property in Manassas, in the little house there when Derek and I have gone out for the evening. With Derek, whether we're in bed or I'm perched on the edge of the kitchen counter or we're in the shower, or on the floor, no matter the position or location or how bold or crazy it gets, it always feels like making love. With him, I am completely unguarded, and instead of that making feel like I'm losing control, it makes me feel like I'm finding a part of myself I never tapped into before; the woman who can be softer, who can be vulnerable and strong at the same time.

Letting Derek Morgan into my heart has made me look at the world in an entirely different way, and it really is just as simple as feeling truly happy and complete for the first time in my life.

* * *

I wonder what kind of deal the federal government received when they purchased tens of thousands of yards of the same slate gray flooring that they recently laid in FBI headquarters. Not just headquarters, but it's the same flooring that now covers the the State Department, from what I've seen. It's the same flooring that now covers the hallways at the FBI training academy.

As I make my way towards Emily's office, I mark my quiet steps along that endless slate gray. When our plane landed after our last case, I could have gone straight home, but my mother is in town for awhile, and I knew she and Claudia had plans to take Charlie to the Air and Space Museum today. Instead of heading home to an empty house, as much as I love our new place in Manassas, I decided to take a detour and stop by to see Emily, who should be done teaching for the day.

When she first left the BAU last month, at the end of April, I let her go with a smile on my face. Though she at first balked at the idea of teaching when the Director of Training approached her, she quickly warmed to the idea. At first she said she didn't know how to teach, but when I, and then Hotch and everyone else at the BAU pointed out that she'd essentially been doing it for years, just in the capacity of educating local law enforcement or people who worked under her at Interpol, she realized that maybe it was in the scope of her capabilities.

She was approached because in 2013, when there was a hiring freeze at the FBI, they stopped taking recruits. A year later, they reopened the training unit with a new vision, where analysts and field agents were trained together for many classes in order to emphasize the critical collaboration of both groups. It was a model Interpol had been working with for awhile, and Emily had the experience to teach new FBI recruits.

So far, things seem to be going well for her and she's enjoying the classes she teaches in threat analysis, ethics, and critical thinking. Though she brings papers home to grade in the evenings, she gets home by late afternoon most days, and she's considered a full-time employee. It's a mellower job, but challenging in its own way, and exactly what she needs.

While the walls and hallway of the training academy might be dull, Emily's office is not. When I round the corner, her door is open and her office is tastefully decorated with a bright throw rug and plants. And pictures of Charlie; more importantly, pictures of me and Emily together with Charlie. A large window overlooks the training fields. The brightest thing in the room, though, is the woman sitting at the desk, her head bent over reading a paper.

In February after another follow-up appointment with Dr. McKenzie, where more blood was drawn and she'd received another clean bill of health, she cut off two inches of the three inches of hair she'd managed to grow since stopping chemotherapy. The coarse, kinky, salt and pepper hair fell away and gave way to the inch underneath, that was downy, but her usually color. She kept up with the wig for March, April and half of May, but when she had a good three inches of her regular hair back, she started wearing it naturally. She uses gel to give it some body, and it's trimmed neatly around the edges, but there's a slightly messy quality to the styled longer portions that get longer each week. The combination is something that looks both professional and modern.

Her eyelashes are back, really back. I can see them from here in the doorway, even though she hasn't looked up to see me yet. The color in her cheeks is natural, and she's a little heavier than she ever was before, but the few extra pounds fall on her body in all the right places, and they are mostly a result of her being more physically fit now than she was before. It's the beginning of June and it's warm; out of the classroom, she's removed her suit jacket, giving way to the tank top shell underneath; I can see the clearly defined, yet feminine, muscles of her upper arms.

"Excuse me, Professor. I think I need a little tutoring," I finally say from the doorway.

She looks up at me standing there and grins. "Not professor. That's Agent Prentiss to you."

"I'm sorry, Agent Prentiss. But do you think you could help me?" I step towards and around her desk and perch on the edge of it, facing her chair.

"And what is it you need help with, Agent Morgan?" she asks, her eyes alight with humor.

I reach my hand forward and trail my fingertips down the side of her face. "I seem to be failing one of my classes and I'm wondering if there's anything I might do for you to boost my grade," I say softly but seductively.

She stares at me, and her lips twitch. "This sounds like the start of a very bad porno, Derek."

I laugh and remove my hand, reaching for hers. "Take me home, Agent Prentiss?"

"You mean to the farm?" she asks, a look of mock indignation on her face.

I smile. "It's three chickens, Em. Hardly a farm."

"And just because our son moved from ducks to chickens doesn't mean he needed live ones as a house warming present."

"Hmmm," I respond. "And how many fresh eggs did you eat this morning?"

She smacks my leg lightly and stands, trying to hide the grin on her face as she starts gathering the papers on her desk. "That's hardly the point," she says. But then she laughs and gives it up. She loves those chickens, who are surprisingly friendly, even if she doesn't like to admit it.

She looks towards the hallway and sees it's empty, so she leans over and kisses me briefly. "I missed you. How was the case?"

I shrug. "OK. The results were about as good as we can hope for. It's nice to have JJ back traveling with us again."

She smiles softly. "That's good. Elaine brought the baby and Henry over for dinner last night since Will was working late. It's nice having all those kids in the house."

I raise my eyebrows hopefully, and she grins. "Don't get any crazy ideas."

"The chickens worked out," I respond.

We've been tossing around the idea of adopting for a couple of months now. Actually, I've been tossing out the idea, and she's been a little uncertain but not entirely uninterested.

She reaches forward to touch my face. "Just let me get through one year cancer-free. I know it may not seem rational, whether we seriously start talking about adoption now or four months from now, but it really feels important to me. I'm open to it, Derek. Honestly."

I smile again and kiss her cheek. "OK."

She slings her bag over her shoulder and we walk towards the doorway and out into the hall. After she locks her office and turns to face me, she asks, "What's that little smile on your face about?"

"I'm thinking about someday maybe having a son _and_ a daughter," I respond honestly.

"Lord help her," Emily says with a laugh as we start walking down the hall.

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?"

She reaches out to touch my arm. "Have you forgotten last month already? Claudia said she had a date and you asked to meet him. And you greeted that poor young man at the door with your holster and gun still on, looking more than just a little menacing."

I laugh. She's right. "He still came back for another date."

"True," she says with a grin.

I follow her on the thirty minute drive home; it's early enough that we're not encumbered by traffic. I'm hoping we'll make it home before the crew gets back from the Smithsonian, but when we pull up into our driveway, Claudia's car is there already. I quickly switch my focus from alone time with Emily to seeing Charlie after being gone for a few days.

When we emerge from our cars, we hear laughter coming from beyond the tree line, a mixture of Charlie's and Claudia's and my mom's. We smile at each other and make our way hand and hand over the grass, past the chicken coop I built and towards the trees. Sergio comes running up to Emily and rubs against her leg.

We find everyone down by the creek, Charlie squealing excitedly, a frog clutched in his hands. "Mommy, Daddy! Look!" he exclaims excitedly when he sees us.

He runs up to Emily and shoves the frog at her. And Emily, naturalist in Ann Taylor, who doesn't at all seem squeamish or seem to care about mud on her suit, reaches out with a laugh and picks Charlie up, frog and all.

I love this version of Emily Prentiss so much sometimes I have to pinch myself just to make sure it's real and I'm not dreaming. She laughs a lot more than I ever thought possible, she's relaxed. That joyful look on her face when she's with our son, that I originally saw in pictures so many months ago, is a permanent part of her being. And it's a joyful look that extends to me and everyone else as well.

A year ago, Emily was someone who occasionally entered my dreams. Ten months ago, I sat on the back porch of the little house on this property and thought about being here with her and Charlie. Nine months ago, I listened to the words of Penelope Garcia, who said she believed with her whole heart that Emily and I would figure out a future together.

There's always a little something in the back of Emily's mind, and in mine, that worries about her cancer coming back, but I don't believe it will. This is the end of the road for both of us, on this property, in a house where my banister is finally where it should be.

The end of the road in that we ended up where we were supposed to be, but the beginning in so many ways, too.

* * *

 _A/N - Thanks for coming along on the ride!_

 _I'm working out in my head a couple of new story ideas, and hope something sticks soon. If not, I may go back and do one-shots/follow-ups to my other stories until a feasible multi-chapter idea comes to me._

Happy Fourth of July!


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